The recent cyber security attack against the Ministry of External Affairs email server has been termed a big threat to national security and the biggest hack on India’s national security. Yet to be confirmed by the officials, recent news aired by the Zee News channel has conducted an analysis that seems like the attack has landed the Indian Government in trouble. Per their statements, the hacker is believed to be operating from Japan or North Korea and has all the confidential emails from June 2022 to January 2023. What’s worse is that this data is being sold online on the Dark Web for 5 Ethereum (around 6 lakh Rs) for the entire email conversation. At the same time, the whole Ministry of External Affairs server is being sold at 20 Ethereum (about 25 lakh Rs). Another exclusive investigation revealed at least 15 senior officials’ user credentials were leaked. The hackers also claim to control around 25 GB of data from the foreign ministry. The hacker has even shared confidential email conversations with senior officials from the foreign ministry and their counterparts to the media personnel, which seem to be legitimate and prove to be one of the major reasons for conducting this detailed analysis.
2 months ago, another attack was targeted at AIIMS (All India Institute of Medical Sciences), a reputed medical institute in India, which leaked confidential data for around 3-4 crore patients. The attack led to shutting down their systems for a whole week, and their day-to-day operations were affected, exposing registration & appointment data, billing details, laboratory reports, and other data storage systems that were either frozen or corrupting the files and the backup modules of the hospital. Media reports suggested that the hacker demanded Rs. 200 crores against the data of these patients, including the data of many VIPs such as former prime ministers, judges, and MPs among others. A case of extortion and cyber terrorism was reported by the Intelligence Fusion and Strategic Operations (IFSO) unit of the Delhi Police on 25th November 2022. Although the institute delivered no ransom, there is a high possibility that the data is still in the possession of the hackers.
As per the reports, there has been an 81% rise in cyber threats since the pandemic. As per a report by cybersecurity firm Acronis, 1 in 2 Indian companies faced cyber-attacks at least once a day amid the pandemic, 16% attacked each hour! Big giants operating in India, such as Razor pay, Amazon, Flipkart, Airtel, Jio Mart, Oil India Ltd, Tech Mahindra, Mobi Kwik, Air India & Domino’s, have all been attacked during the period from 2021 to 2022. No company or security measure can guarantee 100% safety. However, a sense of cyber-security awareness within individuals and companies can help reduce their frequency and protect themselves from the knowledge of how to mitigate these risks.