Cyber war: Indian hackers take down OGRA site

Pakistani hackers deface Indian intelligence website and Indian Cyber Army takes down Ogra.

A war between Indian and Pakistani cyber hackers has erupted. Both sides are hacking each other’s websites. These attacks began with an Indian Cyber Army (ICA) attack — cited as ‘revenge for the 26/11 attack — on Pakistani government websites.

A group of Pakistani hackers, identifying themselves as the Pakistan Cyber Army (PCA), retaliated not out of  any ideological motivation but simply revenge.

The two sides have been retaliating since then, with dangerous tit-for-tat attacks. Sensitive websites, including government owned ones, on both sides of the cyber war have already been put out of commission. And the ongoing cyber war threatens to disable even more.

Important casualties of this cyber war include the website of the Indian Central Bureau of Investigations (CBI) and the Pakistan’s Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra) and the website of the Jadavpur University Department of Economics.

The Ogra website (ogra.org.pk) was recovered by the website’s administrators, the Jadavpur University Department of economics (www.jueconomics.in/) still hosts the PCA’s message and the Indian Central Bureau of Investigations (http://cbi.nic.in/) can still not be accessed.

CBI authorities have said they are working to restore the site, which offered information to the public. The CBI’s spokesperson was unwilling to comment on Indian media reports that more than 200 other Indian sites had also been attacked by Pakistani hackers.

“We came to know the CBI site had been compromised Friday night,” the spokesperson said. “It will take us a couple of days to restore the site.”

The spokesperson added that they could not immediately say who was responsible for the attack. However, he mentioned that the CBI had “registered a case” and was investigating the attack. The Pakistani hackers in a message posted on the Indian website said “Hacked hahaa funny”, “Let us see what you investigating agency so called CBI can do” (sic).

“We always get revenge,” the chief of the PCA said to The Express Tribune. “I do this because I love Pakistan and want to do something ‘big’ for my country,” said the administrator of the website where the PCA collective congregates.

Different groups of Pakistani hackers all of whom congregate under the banner of the Pakistan Cyber Army, retaliated for the ICA’s attack on Pakistan’s government websites earlier this week. They defaced the website for the Indian Central Bureau of Investigations (CBI) along with some 270 other government websites. The hackers signed their message on the Indian police website: “Pakistan Zindabad”.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 5th, 2010.