In just three months, a total of 112 websites belonging to various government bodies, including that of BSNL, were hacked, the ministry of communications and IT, headed by Kapil Sibal, told the Lok Sabha today.
The ministry, currently on an ambitious project to build an organization to monitor online traffic, was replying to a question on whether or not BSNL’s website was hacked in December, and how many such incidents took place since then.
“The website of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (www.bsnl.co.in) was hacked on 4th December, 2011 by the ‘H4tr!ck’ hacker group,” the ministry said.
“In addition, during the period December, 2011 to February, 2012 a total no. of 112 Government websites were hacked,” it added.
These hacked websites belonged to the agencies in the Government of Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Kerala, Orissa, Uttar Pradesh, Sikkim, Manipur: Agencies of Ministry of Finance, Health, Planning Commission and Human Resource Development.
The ministry also said the total number of cases of internet financial fraud were 864 in number, involving Rs. 824.05 lakh in 2009, 2232 cases involving Rs 1234.94 lakh in 2010 and 1798 cases involving Rs.787.39 lakh for the calendar year in 2011.
Meanwhile, the government is setting up a National Cyber Coordination Centre at a cost of Rs 800 crore, according to the Times of India, to monitor all communication using the Internet, including email, tweets etc..
