THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Kerala State Electricity Board’s Facebook page saw a strange post from a hackers’ group, K Hackers claiming that they have hacked the board’s online site. They have given the board three weeks to rectify the bug which allegedly resulted in data of three lakh consumers getting compromised.
However, KSEB authorities claim that this is not a grave threat as the hackers have not secured personal information of consumers and only got hold of the name, consumer number, unit consumption and usage charge. KSEB has since stopped its online ‘quick pay’ mechanism.
The public got to know of the hacking through K Hackers’ Facebook post at 6am on Saturday. The hackers intended to highlight how a ‘secure’ payment mode of the KSEB can be hacked. However, R Ravichandar, chief engineer (IT, customer relations) told TNIE that since the KSEB’s website has been designed as an open source, quick pay option can be easily tampered with.
“When consumers avail themselves of the quick pay option, they need to enter their mobile number and consumer number. Since the hacking, we have decided to terminate the quick pay option,” said Ravichandar.