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‘It's a malicious link': NIC cautions govt officials over fresh phishing attempt

Dec 22, 2022 08:52 AM IST

The phishing email itself pretended to be a warning from the NIC, and asked users to click on a malicious link to verify their profile

NEW DELHI: The government’s information technology service provider, the National Informatics Centre (NIC), issued an alert against a phishing attempt targeted at government employees and seemingly sent from what appeared to be a compromised government domain email address.

The Central Secretariat Service Forum, a representative body of Central Secretariat Service officers. flagged the matter on Twitter. (AP File Image)
The Central Secretariat Service Forum, a representative body of Central Secretariat Service officers. flagged the matter on Twitter. (AP File Image)

The phishing email pretended to be a warning from the NIC and asked users to click on a malicious link.

The attempt is the latest in a spree of incidents involving the compromise of government email addresses that were then used to send phishing emails to attempt to hack officials. The new attempt appeared to come from an email address whose sender pretended to be an official in the NIC, asking the target to verify their profile by clicking on the malicious link.

The Central Secretariat Service Forum, a representative body of Central Secretariat Service officers. also flagged the matter on Twitter.

“Officers of Ministry of Defence have reported to receive an email from NIC for verifying their Gov email profile. The link given in the email seems to be suspicious. Urgent action required whether same has been sent by @NICMeity or not,” the forum said on Twitter.

The tweet was posted along with a mail, purportedly sent by a NIC official, that asked a defence ministry official to verify his user profile by clicking on a link.

NIC reacted to the forum’s tweet saying the link was fake and malicious.

“This is a fake and malicious link which has not been sent by NIC. Please do not click on the link. Efforts are being made to block this malicious link with help of CERT-IN,” NIC said in response

The development came on the back of hackers targeting theAll India Institute of Medical Sciences and blocking access to computer systems.

Responding to a question seeking details of the attack on the AIIMS servers on November 23, which crippled digital services at the hospital and risked patient and research data, union minister of state for health and family welfare, Bharati Pravin Pawar last week said, “No specific amount of ransom was demanded by the hackers though a message was discovered on the server suggesting that it was a cyberattack.”

Responding to a question in Parliament, the minister also said all the data of the hospital’s eHospital network has been retrieved from a backup server.

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