Users redirected to porn from govt websites; initial probe hints at malware downlod from 'unauthorised sites

The cybersecurity experts probing the matter discovered few systems that maintained the government websites were logged into ‘unauthorised websites’.

Government website users have recently complained about being redicted to porn sites and it raised a security challenge. The initial investigation found the possible cause of the incident is due to malware downloaded on the systems at government offices.

These incidents were happening probably because cyber hygiene was not maintainted

According to News18, the cybersecurity experts probing the matter discovered few systems that maintained the government websites were logged into ‘unauthorised websites’ which may have caused the officials intentionally and inadvertently download a malware.

The incidents of central ministry's website being redirected to porn sits were reported last month. According to a government official, the websites have been behaving like this due to a malware, and a detailed analysis of the matter has been initiated.

The cyber security agency of the Union ministry of home affairs noticed the site activity and the government immediately roped in the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In). These incidents were happening probably because cyber hygiene was not maintainted, according to a senior government official.

The CERT-In team observed that the hackers have used the Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) to attack the websites directed at individual servers.

The DDoS attack involves flooding of servers with internet traffic barring users to access online services from the concerned website.