Cyberattacks by Pakistan groups on 4 defence facilities thwarted

Intelligence assessments ascertained that the attacks were carried by a group under the name ‘IOK Hacker’ or the ‘Internet of Khilafah’, and sought to deface pages, disrupt online services, and harvest personal information. Image for representation.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Amid heightened tensions between India and Pakistan, cyber attacks were reported on the websites of four institutions associated with the armed forces. The cyber attacks originated from Pakistan, official sources said.

Intelligence assessments confirmed four related incidents, including cyber attacks on the websites of the Army Public School in Srinagar and Ranikhet, both of which were targeted with inflammatory propaganda, while the school in Srinagar also faced a distributed denial of service attack, Army sources said. “They could deface the homepage, and caused distributed denial of services. However, it was quickly rectified by the web managers,” a source said.

An attempted breach of the Army Welfare Housing Organisation database was also detected, while an effort was made to compromise the Indian Air Force Placement Organisation portal, the source stated. “All four sites were promptly isolated, and restorative action was undertaken; no operational or classified networks were affected at any stage. Pakistan-based cyber actors have once again failed in their attempts to violate Indian cyber sovereignty,” the source said.

These attacks on publicly accessible welfare and educational websites appeared to have been carried out after mission-critical national networks were found impenetrable, the source observed.

Intelligence assessments ascertained that the attacks were carried by a group under the name ‘IOK Hacker’ or the ‘Internet of Khilafah’, and sought to deface pages, disrupt online services, and harvest personal information. “India’s layered cyber-security architecture detected the intrusions in real time and quickly traced their origin to Pakistan,” the source stated, adding that these attempts highlighted both the adversary’s intent as well as limitations.

As tensions mount between the two nuclear armed neighbours in the aftermath of the Pahalgam terror attack on April 22, firing by small arms along the Line of Control (LoC) has been reported over the past five days even as Pakistan continues to redeploy forces and heavy military hardware along the border. In addition, tensions and propaganda have also peaked on social media.