Anonymous hacks Indian site in fight against corruption

The hacker group is backing an anti-corruption movement in India

Hacker group Anonymous has come out in support of a civil movement against corruption in India by hacking one of the websites of a government IT organization.

Until now a large number of the hacks of websites in India were part of an ongoing cyber war between Indian and Pakistani hacker groups.

Anonymous put up its logo and a message for the country's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the website of the National Informatics Center according to The Hacker News. The page could not be accessed by Tuesday, but a cache of it on Google Search confirmed that it had been defaced by Anonymous.

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Hacker group Anonymous has come out in support of a civil movement against corruption in India by hacking one of the websites of a government IT organization.

Until now a large number of the hacks of websites in India were part of an ongoing cyber war between Indian and Pakistani hacker groups.

Anonymous put up its logo and a message for the country's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the website of the National Informatics Center according to The Hacker News. The page could not be accessed by Tuesday, but a cache of it on Google Search confirmed that it had been defaced by Anonymous.

"There is no use securing. There is no use of spending on forensic. Get this message clear Mr. Prime Minister and others", the message read.

The NIC is responsible for promoting and implementing IT projects including e-governance projects in the country.

A cached image on Google search suggests that the hacked part of the site was primarily an e-governance newsletter of NIC. On Tuesday this part of the NIC site was "under maintenance".

NIC did not respond to a request for comment on Tuesday. There was however no data stolen by the hack, or any damage done, according to a government expert on cyber security. "This was more a playful threat, that exploited some weaknesses of the NIC site," the official said on condition of anonymity.

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.