Indian government feels cyber attacks heat with over 700 websites hacked in four years

Just like pretty much everyone else lately, the Indian government is feeling the heat of growing cyber attacks.

Approximately 707 websites associated with the Indian government — both central and state — have been hit with security breaches in the past four years, Kiren Rijiju, the minister of state for home affairs said today.

Looking at the number of attacks, it appears things have only gotten worse over the years. Rijiju, who made the revelation at Lok Sabha, the lower house of India’s bicameral Parliament, said 199 of these websites were hacked just last year.

On Jan 1., the website of counter-terrorist force National Security Guard was also hacked, with unknown hackers posting abusive messages on the website, he added.

In comparison, 164 websites were hit with a breach in 2015, 155 in 2014, and 189 in 2013. The government has so far arrested 8,348 people for involvement in these security attacks.

At a media event in New Delhi, India’s IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had also expressed concerns about cyber security attacks in India. He urged Google CEO Sundar Pichai to get more involved in the country and help it bolster the security defence.

The government was reportedly scrambling its databases and other records last month in the wake of several high profile Twitter hacks.

Last year, Microsoft too launched its full-scale Cybersecurity Engagement Centre in the country. The "first-of-its-kind centre", located in the heart of the country's capital city of New Delhi, is positioned to help public and private sector organizations in India with deeper cybersecurity collaborations with Microsoft.