Cyber attack on NHAI email server, 'prompt action' resulted in no data loss

The government had warned against a large-scale cyberattack against individuals and businesses earlier this month.

The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) on Monday said a cyberattack took place on its email server on Sunday night but prompt action resulted in no data loss.

As a precaution, the Authority had shut down the server.

"A ransom ware attack on NHAI email server took place yesterday night. The attack was foiled by the security system and email servers were shut down from safety point of view," NHAI Chief General Manager, IT, Akhilesh Srivastava, said.

The system is restored now, Srivastava added.

"No data loss took place. NHAI data lake and other systems remained unaffected from this attack," he said.

The government had warned against a large-scale cyberattack against individuals and businesses earlier this month.

India's cyber security nodal agency, CERT-In had issued an advisory warning that the potential phishing attacks could impersonate government agencies, departments and trade bodies that have been tasked to oversee disbursement of government fiscal aid.

The NHAI has been mandated the task to develop, maintain and manage National Highways, the arterial roads of the country, for inter-state movement of passengers and goods.

CBI to probe if Cambridge Analytica misused Indians' Facebook data: Govt

Ravi Shankar Prasad said the probe by CBI will determine whether Cambridge Analytica violated the Information Technology Act, 2000 and the IPC.

The Centre has asked the CBI to probe the alleged misuse of data of India's Facebook users by British political consultancy firm Cambridge Analytica, Law and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad told the Rajya Sabha on Thursday.

In a significant move ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, Prasad said the probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation(CBI) will determine whether Cambridge Analytica violated the Information Technology Act, 2000 and the Indian Penal Code(IPC). The data mining and analysis firm earlier faced allegations it used personal information harvested from 87 million Facebook accounts to help Donald Trump win the 2016 US presidential election.

As members in the Upper House expressed concern over social media platforms being used to spread rumours and fake news, Prasad also said the government has asked them to provide technological solutions so that verified fake news and provocative messages can be filtered.

Cambridge Analytica(CA) is at the centre of a storm in the country over the alleged breach of Facebook user data seeking information about its clients in India and whether it had harvested their user profiles. The controversy had triggered a war of words between the BJP and the Congress.

Prasad while responding to the concerns by members during a calling attention notice on the misuse of social media and propagation of fake news causing unrest and violence referred to the reported breach at Facebook where the data of a large number of users were allegedly compromised by Cambridge Analytica.

He said notices were immediately issued to the two companies and their response sought.

"Facebook responded that they will streamline their internal processes regarding the handling of personal data. They stated that the case of Cambridge Analytica was a case of breach of trust. They promised to take various other steps to ensure that such breaches do not recur," Prasad said.

Article Source BS