A petition was filed in the Bombay High Court seeking urgent action by authorities into widespread and continuous cyberattacks on several Maharashtra government websites. The petition, filed by Information Technology (IT) consultant and visiting professor, Ruzbeh Raja, said that websites under the domain name ‘Maharashtra.gov.in’ were redirecting visitors to gambling and betting pages. Ruzbeh said the sites sought the users’ personal information and other details.
Advocates Ajinkya Udane and Jay Bhatia, appearing for the petitioner, sought an urgent hearing before the bench of Chief Justice Alok Aradhe and Justice Bharti Dangre.
The petition listed over 20 websites of the state government that were allegedly targeted. It cited the websites of the Mumbai Police, the State Information Commission, the Transport Department, the Directorate of Forensic Science, the Law and Justice Department, the Chief Electoral Officer and even the Directorate of Information Technology.
Udane pointed out that despite the issue being reported to the Computer Emergency Response Team of India (CERT-In), National Cyber Crime Portal and Maharashtra Cyber Helpline, the attacks have not stopped.
“If the attackers are able to redirect visitors to gambling and betting websites, they can easily redirect a visitor to a fake phishing website which may be used for extracting money or for scams like digital arrest and even something more dangerous which may infect the visitor’s computer,” the advocate said.
The petition sought the filing of an FIR to investigate the individuals behind “such large-scale cyberattacks” and unauthorised access to several government departments.
The petition also suggested that such attacks might have taken place due to outdated software on the servers, lack of basic firewall systems and failure of the government to monitor their servers for such flaws and breaches.
The bench will next hear the petition on February 12.