Defacement of Indian website on rise

According to statistics of the Computer Emergency Response Team (Cert-In) which handles computer securities incidents in the country, 612 websites were defaced in March compared to 214 websites in February.

Website defacement is a form of malicious hacking. It is usually the substitution of the original home page by a system cracker that breaks into a web server and alters the hosted website creating one of his own. Often the hacker replaces the site's normal content with a specific political or social message or erases the content from the site.

"It is easier to deface a website; a hacker can easily do it by relying on known security vulnerabilities for access to the site's content. Whereas, hacking a website for stealing data and information requires more technical know-how," a security expert said.

Hackers usually deface website for three purposes