DU, IIT-D, AMU among 10 websites hacked, pro-Pak slogans displayed

Official websites of several higher educational institutions including those of the Indian Institute of Technology-Delhi (IIT-D), the National Aerospace Laboratories (NAL) and the Board of Research in Nuclear Sciences (BRNS) have fallen victim of a cyber attack on Monday.

The websites of these institutions remained accessible only from some places in the world as the external servers, which allow people to visit these sites when the URL is typed, diverting the traffic to another page, created by the pro-Pakistani hackers, with a caption, “Pakistan Zindabad.”

 "Greetings Government of India, and the people of India. Do you know what your so-called heroes (soldiers) are doing in Kashmir? …Nothing deleted or stolen. Just here to deliver my message to Indians," the hackers group, which identified itself as "Pakistan Haxors Crew (PHC)", posted on the webpage created to divert the URL of the higher educational websites.

 IIT-Delhi registrar Sandeep Chatterjee said the institute’s website was not hacked but the domain name system (DNS) was spoofed

 “Our website is absolutely fine. We have done all the necessary diagnosis. Problem is at the end of Ernet India which is custodian of all DNS entry,” an IIT-D official told DH, requesting anonymity.

Many other websites with “.in and .ac” registry including that of Delhi University, Aligarh Muslim University, IIT-BHU, University of Kota, Army Institute of Management and Technology, Defence Institute of Advanced Technology and Army Institute of Management were hit by the cyber attack.

 “The same thing happened with the IIT-Bombay website last monthy. Problem is not with our websites but with the Ernet India. Government should do something about Ernet,” the IIT official added.