Delhi Police suffers sixth cyber attack in 15 months

Some officials, refusing to be identified, said the hacking was done by “professionals” who are based abroad

New Delhi: The Delhi Police’s X handle was hacked late Tuesday, making it the sixth time in the past 15 months that the unit has suffered a cyber attack on its website or social media handles. While the damage was short-lived and the account was restored in an hour, the lack of arrest in any of the past hacking cases remains a cause for concern, with senior police officers declining to comment on the development.

A police officer at the headquarters confirmed the cyber attack and said that the account was restored within an hour. (Representative photo)

Some officials, refusing to be identified, said the hacking was done by “professionals” who are based abroad.

In the latest instance, hackers changed the name, profile photo and biography of the account, with a group identified as MagIc Edem posting information on “trading digital collectibles” on the handle, which has over a million followers. The hackers also reportedly posted information in Japanese, which was removed later.

A police officer at the headquarters confirmed the cyber attack and said that the account was restored within an hour. “It didn’t take long to restore the account and change passwords. The accused will be identified and punished,” the officer, refusing to be identified, said.

The last instance of hacking took place in April, in two simultaneous incidents wherein the Delhi Police and Delhi Traffic Police websites were both hacked. The news of the data breach went viral after the hackers, identified as KillSec, posted messages on their Telegram channel, claiming they had access to Delhi Police and traffic police’s websites.

A police officer from the traffic unit said, “We remember the incident. The group had further challenged the police saying they can change the status of challans from unpaid to paid. The hackers even offered a chance to multiple violators to share their personal information and get their violations struck down.”

Police said they shared the information with CERT-In (Indian Computer Emergency Response Team) and other central agencies, their websites were restored within hours and no further threat was found. “They were not able to change anything on the websites. They had only gained access to a few systems…” the officer said.

In April, Delhi police’s crime branch arrested a 38-year-old man from Ghaziabad for allegedly launching multiple cyber attacks on different state police websites and hacking Rajasthan police’s website. Police said he caused a data breach and was ready to sell the data sets for ₹20,000 but was caught.

Last September, there were three cyber attacks when the police and central agencies were busy making law and order arrangements for the G20 Summit in New Delhi. However, no arrest has been made in the case yet.

Police said all cases are being looked into by the special cell, DRDO (Defence Research and Development Organisation) and CERT-In.

A senior investigator with the cyber cell said, “We flag all such issues to CERT-In and special cell but the attacks are targeted attacks by professionals, who are mostly based abroad. Even if we get an IP address, there can’t be much that we can do. Also, these attacks are either by religious organisations or by hackers who do it for fun.”