China, Pakistan lead cyber attacks against India, over 1 lakh websites hacked since 2015

Apart from China and Pakistan, countries such as France, Netherlands, Russia, Serbia, Taiwan and Tunisia have also been found to be behind these cyber attacks.

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New Delhi: Countries like China and Pakistan have been found to be behind several cyber attacks by hacking into over 1 lakh India websites by breaking their security systems. The attacks have posed to be a great cyber threat. In the last five years, as many as 1,29,747 Indian websites have been hacked, the Ministry of Electronics and Technology informed the Rajya Sabha while replying to a question on Friday (March 6, 2020).

The CERT-In (Indian Computer Emergency Response Team) has tracked some foreign hackers who have been regularly attacking Indian websites and their security features.

Apart from China and Pakistan, hackers from countries such as France, Netherlands, Russia, Serbia, Taiwan and Tunisia have also been found to be behind these cyber attacks.

In 2015, as many as 27,205 websites in India were hacked, while more than 33, 000 Indian websites were under cyber attack in the year 2016. The number dipped slightly in 2017, with at least 30,067 websites reportedly being hacked. In 2018, as many as 17,560 websites were hacked while in 2019, at least 21, 767 websites came under cyber attacks.

The Centre also informed that work was being done on a large scale to improve India's cybersecurity. The threat of new challenges and alerts are being worked on and a detailed list of responsibilities has been handed over to the Chief Information Security Officer.

The government has conducted several mock drills in many ministries on the subject of cybersecurity. In the 44 mock drills that have been completed, the cybersecurity of at least 265 government organizations will be given maximum attention.