Govt websites come under cyber attack

FE Team | Published: March 21, 2010 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00

Bangladesh government websites, operating out of the Prime Minister's Office (PMO), were under cyber attack Saturday by hackers purporting to be "Indian", reports bdnews24.com.
At around 2:30am, the news agency found that 19 out of 64 district web portals had been hacked by "MIL INDIAN HACKER", threatening "cyber war" in retaliation to any terrorist attack by Pakistan on Indian soil "via Bangladesh".
The sites were fixed around 16 hours later, said officials, who in some cases had first been notified of the attack by the agency's online report.
The hacked portals (for example: http://www.dcpirojpur.gov.bd/) displayed a poster on opening, which said: 28 DIFFERENT STATES, 28 DIFFERENT LANGUAGES BUT ONE WORD JAI HIND!'
A message below the poster reads: "Secure border between India and Bangladesh. If any terrorist send by Pakistan come via Bangladesh route then I will danger to YOU Cyber War will be started. These are demo we don't want 26/11 in India GOVERNMENT LOOK AT IT ELSE CYBER WAR WILL START…. WE ROOTED AND **** YOUR ISP."
Lt Col Ziaul Ahsan, chief of RAB's intelligence division, which is in charge of tracking cyber crime in Bangladesh, told bdnews24.com the agency Saturday afternoon, at least 12 hours after the attack occurred, that they had "not been notified" of the hacking incident.
The Prime Minister launched the district web portals in January as part of the government's pledge to build a 'Digital Bangladesh'.
The sites, maintained from PMO under the Access to Information wing, offer information about each of Bangladesh's 64 districts.
The government has said it is preparing web portals for the country's 469 upazilas, or subdistricts, in future.
But Saturday's incident may illustrate the poor cyber security of the government.
Dr M Kaykobad, professor of computer science and engineering, BUET told the agency that the attack was "serious" and portrayed the lack of attention by the government.
"The government should be extra careful about this type of crime, it is serious."
MA Jalil, deputy commissioner (DC) of Dinajpur, one of the 19 districts whose portals were hacked, told the agency that they had noticed "after the news was published at bdnews24.com online".
Officials of the Access to Information wing of the PMO told at around 6:30pm that 18 of the 19 hacked portals were repaired and the last one would be fixed soon.
Bangladesh law enforcers in recent months have arrested and detained operatives of Pakistan-based militant organisations and northeast Indian separatist outfits, which have been blamed for terrorist attacks in India, and have reportedly operated or recruited members from Bangladesh.