Hackers shutdown fire department website

The state fire department's official website was compromised by Pakistani and Chinese hackers, but state department of e-governance is apparently unaware of these two incidents

Hackers shutdown fire department website

The state fire department's official website was compromised by Pakistani and Chinese hackers, but state department of e-governance is apparently unaware of these two incidents

The scourge of hacking incidents seems to continue unabated in the country, but surprisingly not everyone seems to be aware of it. Recently, the state fire department's official website was hacked by Pakistani hackers and has been non-functional for the past six months. However, the state department of e-governance, which is supposedly been informed to resolve the issue, claims ignorance. The site has been non-functional and anyone attempting to browse is met with a message saying that the site is under construction. The links are also not operational and the content on almost all the pages has been removed.

Locked down: The site has been non-functional and anyone attempting
to browse is met with a message saying that the site is under construction.

"A few months ago we discovered that our website has been changed completely. It was not opening and we saw Pakistan flags on the website. We realised it had been hacked. A similar incident happened earlier when Chinese hackers hit the site," said D Rasheed, Deputy Director of Karnataka State Fire and Emergency Services. He added that the matter was reported to the Central Bureau Investigation (CBI) and the website will be soon be constructed by state department of e-governance.

Except for the 'about us' and 'Home' section, nothing else on the website works. The page shows that it is under construction. However, an official from the department said that they are aware of the website being down and know that it will cause inconvenience to citizens. He said that the department of e-governance is working on the website and parts of it are already undergoing trials.

The official said that the website should function within the next week. He added that once re-launched, the website will have a section where citizens can directly communicate with the fire officials. However, when contacted the department of e-governance said that they were not aware of the construction of any website for the state fire department.

We don't know
"We are not aware of any such website being constructed. We have not received any such news of hacking," said an unnamed official from the department of e-governance.

On the other hand, Cyber Crime Police, Bangalore said they were not sure of any such news of hackingu00a0 and refused to divulge any statistics on the number of state government website that has been hacked in the recent past.

Similar attacks in the past
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) faced major embarrassment after its official website was hacked by a self proclaimed 'Pakistani Cyber Army' in December last year. Its home page had a message from the hackers warning the Indian Cyber Army not to attack their websites. The message also informed about the filtering controls provided by the National Informatics Centre, a body that mans computer servers across the country.

Earlier in the same year, a group also calling the same group hacked into the website of independent Indian MP Vijay Mallya, a flamboyant liquor baron, and head of Kingfisher Airlines The group also staked claims to hacking a number of Indian websites in recent years, which include India's state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), in retaliation to Indian hackers accessing Pakistan sites.