Recent reports have stated that India businesses and their National Internet Registry suffered a cyber attack resulting in the theft of more than 6000 pieces of sensitive information. Impacted by the cyber attack were roughly 6000 India based businesses and authorities are completely clueless as to who the attacker actually was.
Quick Heal, an information technology security firm, and it’s subsidiary Seqrite, made the discovery of the breached information being found on the Dark Web up for sale. Information stolen included that from several businesses: banks, various service providers and government departments.
The NIXI, National Internet Exchange of India, was also involved in the breach but data stolen from them was minor, if that. An official statement released by NIXI concluded that thanks to their security system and thorough anti-cyber attack protocols they were able to stop the attack before much damage was done.
NIXI also stated that the breach is not considered major and the only data stolen by the hacker was basic, at best, such as non-sensitive contact information of a few individuals involved with NIXI administrators. The hacker was unable to steal any data of real value thanks to the security protocols in place.
All appropriate government and law enforcement departments were quickly contacted as soon as the breach was detected. The sale of the information on the Dark Web is being handled by professionals in order to stop any of it from being sold. If sold to an individual with devious intentions, the involved businesses may, in fact, suffer.
Many are calling into question India’s ability to protect their own systems from cyber attacks such as this. Subsequently, all appropriate departments are working tirelessly to find the bugs and fill the gaps in security to better combat any future hacking attempts. In a digitized world, we need to start being on top of things.