Ram Mandir inauguration: How India tackled cyberthreats from China and Pakistan

While India was witnessing the inauguration of the Ram Mandir in January, hackers from China and Pakistan were attempting to launch cyberattacks on a number of Indian websites.

India blocked over 1,200 IP addresses around 22 January — an overwhelming majority of them from China.

But what happened? How did India avert a fusillade of cyber attacks?

Let’s take a closer look:

According to Economic Times, hackers from Pakistan and China attempted to take down websites of the Ram Mandir, Prasar Bharati and other some infrastructure websites in Uttar Pradesh.

Officials said the government was expecting attacks during the inauguration.

According to the 420.in, the Centre had deployed people from the Ministry of Home Affairs’ Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C), the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITy), the Intelligence Bureau (IB), and CERT-In in Ayodhya.

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Officials told Economic Times that Telecom Security Operation Centre (TSOC) was keeping an eye on 264 websites including Ram Temple, Prasar Bharti, UP Police, the UP airport, UP tourism and the power grid.

Around 140 IP addresses were taking aim at the Ram Temple and Prasar Bharti websites.

The government then told ISPs to block addresses from China and Pakistan on 21 January.

However, malicious attacks from those nations only increased.

“After blocking 1,244 IP addresses, the attacks reduced,” an official told the newspaper.

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Another official also said attempts were made from inside India to attack digital infrastructure.

“Before the inauguration of Ram Temple, a similar strategy was put in place to guard the digital infrastructure during the G20 summit,” an official said.

The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) used indigenous artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning technologies to pre-empt cyber attacks.

The DoT had also used digital data to handle crowd management, as per the newspaper.

According to BNN Breaking.com, attacks also originated from Pakistan, Hong Kong, and Cambodia.

The piece noted that the development “is a stark reminder of the ongoing battle in the digital domain, necessitating a forward-looking approach to cybersecurity.”

“This pivotal moment in India’s digital security narrative marks a significant step towards understanding and combating international cyber threats. As the country continues to navigate the challenges of a digitized world, the lessons learned from the Ram Mandir inauguration cyber-attacks will undoubtedly shape its cybersecurity strategies for years to come,” the piece said.

It said the incident highlights the need to improve digital defences as well as the need for international cooperation.

“As we move forward, embracing a dynamic and comprehensive approach to cybersecurity will be crucial in safeguarding national interests in an increasingly connected world,” the piece concluded.

That India witnessed a spate of cyber attacks during the Ram Mandir inauguration should hardly come as a surprise.

Over 400 million cyber threats in 2023

India in 2023 saw over 400 million cyber threats across approximately 8.5 million endpoints — averaging 761 detections per minute.

Surat (15 per cent) and Bengaluru (14 per cent) report the highest number of detections, a report in December showed.

There were 49 million behaviour-based detections, constituting 12.5 per cent of the total detections, according to the report by the Data Security Council of India (DSCI) in collaboration with enterprise cybersecurity solutions provider Seqrite.

Over 50 per cent of detections are associated with removable media and network drives and nearly 25 per cent of attacks result from clicking on malicious links in emails and websites.

An average of three attacks per month per Android device were observed in 2023.

“Malware stands as a significant threat with cybercrime engineering becoming increasingly intricate with diverse attack methodologies. Additionally, ransomware authors continually evolve their methodologies and employ sophisticated techniques to evade traditional signature-based detection,” said Vinayak Godse, Chief Executive Officer of the Data Security Council of India.

Shockingly, fake and malicious applications hosted on the Google Play Store have been downloaded by millions of users, including SpyLoan apps, fake apps, HidAdd apps, and more, the findings showed.

Ransomware attacks evade traditional signature-based detection techniques to pose a bigger threat which is evident in the malware vs ransomware incident ratio findings, according to the report.

Cryptojacking emerged as a significant threat with over 5.28 million detections in a year.

Trojans (41 per cent) and infectors (33 per cent) contribute significantly to the attack spectrum.

The automobile industry experienced the highest number of detections, followed by the government and education sector.

“Today’s cyber landscape demands collaborative efforts and innovative solutions,” said Vishal Salvi, CEO of Quick Heal Technologies.

The Wire in a report noted that state-sponsored cyber attacks against India saw a 278 per cent rise between 2021 and September 2023.

Services companies, including information technology (IT) firms and business process outsourcing (BPO) firms, saw the highest share of attacks.

Attacks on government agencies increased 460 per cent, while startups and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) saw an incredible 508 per cent increase.

The Economic Times also noted that India, which witnessed 13.7 per cent of all cyber attacks, is the most targeted country globally.

With inputs from agencies