New Delhi: The cyber-security firm CloudSEK reported on Friday, that cyber attacks targeting the India Government Sector increased by a whopping 95 per cent in the second half of the year 2022 if compared to the same period in 2021. The intensified attacks on the Indian Government increased to such extent, that the country became the most frequently targeted in the sector in 2022.
The report further stated that, numerous campaigns such as #OpIndia and #OpsPatuk carried out by the 'Hacktivist' group Dragon Force Malaysia and the support of various other hacktivist groups in these campaigns leading to the previous expansion. However, there are other reasons for this data breach, besides the growing 'Hacktivism'.
"Government agencies in India have become popular targets for extensive phishing campaigns," the CloudSEK report mentioned. Most of these threat actors operate with the primary motive of exfiltrating data and selling it for monetary benefits, but, this is also not the only reason for them to target various governments.
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Over the last decade, emergence of various Advanced Persistent Threat Groups (APT Groups) and Hacktivist campaigns has led to this change of events. Also, the increased activity of various ransomware groups, accounting for 6 per cent of the total incidents reported, with LockBIT as the most prominent ransomware operator, contributed to the data breach activities.
One of India's premier healthcare institutes, AIIMS, suffered a massive ransomware attack, crippling its network for several days. Data of around three crore travellers registered with the Indian Railways has been hacked and is reportedly being sold on the Dark Web. However, the Railways did deny the claims of a suspected data breach from servers of the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC). Ministry of Jal Shakti's (Water Resources) Twitter handle was also hacked twice in December, promoting fake cryptocurrency giveaway scam.
According to CloudSEK's report, India, US, Indonesia and China continue to be the most targeted countries in the past two years. Together, these four countries have accounted for 40 per cent of the total reported incidents in the government sectors.
