JOIN USThe Andhra Pradesh government on Thursday was in a state of shock when it realised that some hackers had hacked 21 websites of the state government.
The development caused panic in the official circles as it came a day before the presentation of the annual budget in the state Assembly.
However, Finance Minister A Ramanarayana Reddy, who is to present his maiden Budget on Friday, said that the state Budget portal was untouched.
The hackers did not deface the home pages of the departmental websites but added additional pages with their messages indicating that the cyber intruders were not radical hackers and that their intention was not to steal any information. It was just a case of hackers trying to demonstrate their capabilities, the officials said.
The hacked websites belonged to major government departments such as Gazette notifications, government orders, commercial taxes, GAD, horticulture, factories and remote and interior area development.
The finance minister asserted that the question of losing vital data to hackers did not arise. “None of the finance department sites or servers which dealt with the preparation of the Budget was touched,” Reddy said.