MP's e-Nagarpalika portal suffers cyber attack, data corrupted: Officials

Madhya Pradesh's e-Nagarpalika portal, which is the online civic tax payment software covering 413 towns and cities in the state, has suffered a cyber attack, leading to corruption of data, a senior official said on Saturday.

Offline data, of which back-up is created on tapes every three days, is safe, he added.

The portal oversees the mechanism by which citizens of these civic bodies get online services like birth and death as well as marriage certificates, payment of property, water and sanitation taxes, among others.

"Following the attack, the e-Nagarpalika portal has been shut till Tuesday. Civic bodies have been told to work offline till the restoration of the system," said Neeraj Mandloi, the Principal Secretary of the state's Urban Administration and Housing Department.

"The cyber attackers have corrupted the entire data of all 413 cities, but offline data, of which backup is taken on tapes every 3 days, is safe," Mandloi informed.

Information Technology experts have not found any trace of data leak due to the attack, other officials said.

They added that the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team, or CERT-In, which is the national nodal agency for responding to to computer security incidents, the state's cyber police and the Madhya Pradesh State Electronic Development Corporation Limited are making efforts to restart the portal.