Barely a month after the chief secretary asked the state government departments to prepare a contingency plan for preventing hacking of government websites, the official website of the state department of information was hacked on Wednesday.
The department officials were in for a surprise when they found that the website, www.information.up.nic.in, which is connected to the state government’s official website, www.upgov.nic.in, flashed the message “hacked by r4diationz” on Wednesday evening.
The officials have reported the matter to National Informatics Centre, Uttar Pradesh, who are trying to find the problem and retrieve all the information that has been lost. As an emergency measure, the information department has stopped all functions of the website.
According to official information, this is the first time that any official government website has been hacked in UP. The department officials found this in the evening when some of them wanted to check the information uploaded during the day.
Director (Information) Ajay Kumar Upadhayaya said: “We found this out in the evening. While not much information seems to have been lost, all press releases and other such documents are missing from the website.”
An official in the information department said: “This is one of the most updated websites with each statement of the chief minister and important press releases being uploaded throughout the day.”
“It also gives out all the information about the state governments different schemes. It is strange as to why it has been hacked as it is an open website,” added the official.
Following the incident, NIC officials have been on their toes to sort the matter. Technical Director NIC, UP, S B Singh said: “No one has defaced the website, which means that this can be a prank as well.”
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