NEW DELHI: The hack of the website of the Ministry of Defence seems to have spooked the Central government as a whole. A short while after Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman confirmed the hack, the Home Ministry took down its site for a security upgrade. The Law Ministry's website was also down, though it is presently unclear if it was done intentionally.


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A government spokesperson said the MHA site has been taken down to allow a security upgrade. The upgrade is being implemented by the Nation Informatics Centre (nic), which hosts most government websites. 


"Site off-line. The site is currently not available due to technical problems. Please try again later. Thank you for your understanding," read the message on the Home Ministry site.


The spokesperson said the move has been taken as part of extra precautions.


However, there is no confirmation from the Law Ministry site on whether the site has been taken down, or chose to go down on its own.


The move came after the website of the Ministry of Defence was hacked on Friday evening. The mod.gov.in website displayed an error message and carried what seemed to be some Chinese characters on top, sparking speculation of a cyberattack from the northern neighbour.


Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman confirmed that the site had been hacked, and said steps would be taken to prevent such an instance in the future.


"Action is initiated after the hacking of MoD website ( http://mod.nic.in  ). The website shall be restored shortly. Needless to say, every possible step required to prevent any such eventuality in the future will be taken," she said in a tweet.


 



The MoD website was still down around 7 pm.