50 government websites hacked, 8 data breaches in 2022, says IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw – Times of India

At a time when institutions are seeing an increased cyber attacks globally, IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw has said that around 50 government websites have been hacked and there were eight data breaches in 2022-23.
Union minister of communication, electronics and information technology Ashwini Vaishnaw told Rajya Sabha that in comparison with 2022-23, there were 59 government sites that were compromised in 2020 and 42 were targeted in 2021. Both years saw six and seven events of data breach, respectively.
“Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) has further informed it has detected and prevented 2,83,581, 4,32,057, 3,24,620 malicious scams during the years 2020, 2021 and 2022 respectively,” the minister said.

Hacking attempts from both India, other countries
He added that attempts of cyberattacks were made both from within the nation and internationally. The IT minister, however, did not name the websites which were attacked in 2022-23.
“There have been attempts from time to time to launch cyber-attacks on Indian cyberspace from both outside and within the country. It has been observed that such attacks compromise computer systems located in different parts of the world and use masquerading techniques and hidden servers to hide the identity of actual systems from which the attacks are launched,” he added.

CERT-In to the rescue
He added that the CERT-In and other law enforcement authorities coordinated and took necessary action against such attacks.
“When a cyber event occurs, CERT-In alerts the impacted organisations and advises them on the necessary corrective action. Additionally, it continuously publishes alerts and advisories on the most recent cyberthreats, vulnerabilities, and protective measures,” he said.
Cyberattack on AIIMS
The year 2022 saw one of the biggest cyberattacks in India wherein the country’s premier institution, All India Institute Of Medical Science (AIIMS), was hit by a ransomware attack. The AIIMS server went offline for about two weeks before authorities recovered data and systems went online.