MUMBAI, 20 September 2007 — IT experts were trying yesterday to restore the official website of the government of Maharashtra, which was hacked in the early hours of Tuesday.
Rakesh Maria, joint commissioner of police, said that the state’s IT officials lodged a formal complaint with the Cyber Crime Branch police on Tuesday. He added that the hackers would be tracked down. Yesterday the website, www.maharashtragovernment.in, remained blocked.
Deputy Chief Minister and Home Minister R.R. Patil confirmed that the Maharashtra government website had been hacked. He added that the state government would seek the help of IT and the Cyber Crime Branch to investigate the hacking.
“We have taken a serious view of this hacking, and if need be the government would even go further and seek the help of private IT experts. Discussions are in progress between the officials of the IT Department and experts,” Patil added.
The state government website contains detailed information about government departments, circulars, reports, and several other topics. IT experts working on restoring the website told Arab News that they fear that the hackers may have destroyed all of the website’s contents.
According to sources, the hackers may be from Washington. IT experts said that the hackers had identified themselves as “Hackers Cool Al-Jazeera” and claimed they were based in Saudi Arabia. They added that this might be a red herring to throw investigators off their trail.
According to a senior official from the state government’s IT department, the official website has been affected by viruses on several occasions in the past, but was never hacked. The official added that the website had no firewall.
Security Beefed Up
Maharashtra government has put the state on high alert following intelligence reports that terrorists were planning attacks to incite communal violence between Hindus and Muslims.
The reports pointed toward possible attacks on temples at Shirdi and Trimbakeshwar in Nashik district.
P.K. Jain, special inspector general of police (Nashik range), told journalists yesterday that the two temples were under serious threat from terrorists after their failed attempts to disturb peace in Malegaon and Hyderabad.
“Federal intelligence agencies have communicated to the Maharashtra police that terrorists have drawn up plans to attack Shirdi and Trimbakeshwar during the Hindu festivals of Navratri or Diwali,” Jain said and appealed to the people to remain alert and calm.
