NEW DELHI: The Indian Council of Medical Research website came under the attack of hackers who tried to breach the cyber-security net of the apex health research body a few days ago, sources said. However, they failed to penetrate the ICMR firewall, the sources added.
The attack happened on November 30, during which foreign cyber hackers made 6,000 attempts to take control of the ICMR’s servers and website.“The hacking attempt was made in a span of 24 hours. However, it could not go past the firewall and the attack was foiled. No data and contents of the institute’s website was compromised and remain safe,” a senior official said.
The hackers behind the cyber attack were traced to Hong Kong. A blacklisted IP address facilitated the failed hacking, the official added. The attack comes close on the heels of the alleged ransomware attack that had paralysed the digital services at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Delhi.
Before that, Safdarjung Hospital in the national capital had also faced a hacking attempt, which forced its servers to shut down temporarily. However, the National Informatics Centre revived them within a short span of time, Dr BL Sherwal, medical superintendent of the hospital, said.
“Since the Covid-19 pandemic, such attacks have intensified in the medical industry due to exemplified presence on the web. Research and other medical data have suddenly become valuable for threat actors. To avert such a situation, institutes need more than antivirus protection. Vulnerability assessment and cyber-security audit are the need of the hour,” Sunny Nehra, managing director of cyber-security firm Secure Your Hacks, said.