The cyber crime investigative cell of the Crime Branch of Mumbai Police is doubtful if the recent hacking of several corporate websites was actually carried out by so-called Pakistan-based hackers.
The recent arrest of two Ahmedabad-based Indian hackers, who posed as members of an Islamic terrorist group, further shows that the hackings could be carried out by anyone from abroad or within the country.
Senior Inspector of the cyber cell I M Zahid said on Sunday that no complaint has been registered with the police despite the alarming frequency of hackings in the past few days.
‘‘It also cannot be confirmed if any Pak-based hackers are behind these attacks that involve cracking and site defacing,’’ he said and added that the police will certainly investigate further in this regard.
Among the most prominent corporate sites defaced by the hackers are IDBI.com and the site owned by the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. Last night, the e-mail server of the newspaper Mid-Day was also hacked, though it has now been restored, along with the other defaced sites.
It is also reliably learnt that certain groups named ‘World Fantabulous Defacers’, ‘Silver Lords’ and ‘Anti India Crew’ have hacked and defaced hundreds of Indian sites, mainly corporates, that are either Linux-based or have little online security.
Computer forensic and technical advisor to the cyber crime investigative cell Flynn Remedios remarked, ‘‘These hacker groups are seemingly finding it easy to break into some of the corporate sites, mainly because the individual companies are taking web security quite casually.” he added that earlier, the Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited site could be easily hacked, but now VSNL has put up so many firewalls and other security software that it is nearly impossible to hack it.