25 Central, state govt websites hacked till May this year: Prasad

Over two dozen websites of Central ministries, departments and state governments were hacked till May this year, as per information by Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), Parliament was informed on Wednesday.

"As per the information reported to and tracked by Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) a total number of 199, 172, 110 and 25 websites of Central Ministries/Departments and State Governments were hacked during the year 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019 (till May), respectively," Electronics and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said in a written reply in the Lok Sabha.

The government has taken several steps to prevent cybersecurity incidents and enhancing cybersecurity in the country, Prasad said, listing out specific measures in this regard.

To an another question, the minister said that overall 10,900 Indian websites were hacked this year (up to May). Attempts have been made from time to time to launch cyber-attacks on Indian cyber space, and these attacks were seen to be originating from a number of countries, including China and Pakistan, he said.

"As per the information reported to and tracked by Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) a total number of 33,147, 30,067, 17,560 and 10,930 Indian websites were hacked during the year 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019 (till May), respectively," the minister said.

He further said the attackers were seen compromising computer systems located in different parts of the world and leverage masquerading techniques and hidden servers to hide the identity of actual systems from which the attacks are being launched.