Cyber hacking on the rise

A reply to a RTI application by the National Informatics Centre, under the ministry of Communications and Information Technology, has revealed that nine government websites were hacked in the recent past. The hackers defaced the home pages by posting objectionable content. NIC’s reply added: “A number of hacking attempts are made on daily basis on governments websites hosted on NICNET servers. It is not possible to accurately quantify these. The attempts are usually effectively blocked by security controls in place.” In 2011, a total of 117 websites were reportedly hacked between January and June. In October, a Pakistan-based hacker defaced eight Indian government sites. Questions about the safety and security of websites – both government and private – have been raised.