Websites for the ministry of defence, home affairs and four others went down Friday afternoon and the NIC insisted it was due to ‘technical problems’.
New Delhi: Not only the website of the Defence Ministry but that of Home Affairs, Law, Labour, Election Commission and E-Gazette too went down after their supposed hacking Friday.
Defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman was quick to tweet that action was being taken to restore the ‘hacked’ Ministry of Defence website and that preventive measures would be taken in the future to prevent such incidents.
However, the National Information Centre (NIC) contradicted Sitharaman by tweeting that the websites had not been hacked, but were facing some technical issue since 2.30 pm in the afternoon.
https://t.co/ywDwBbKtfy is NOT HACKED. There is some technical issue since 2:30PM today. Drupal theme https://t.co/pCcIvEaMXO framework. The site displayed the default logo. @drajaykumar_ias @nsitharaman @DefenceMinIndia @PIB_India @PIBHindi
— NIC (@NICMeity) April 6, 2018
The Ministry of Defence website had supposedly become unresponsive with Chinese characters showing on the homepage, which drew suspicion. According to the NIC, the Chinese characters were default symbols of Zen Drupal, the display theme of the website.
Action is initiated after the hacking of MoD website ( https://t.co/7aEc779N2b ). The website shall be restored shortly. Needless to say, every possible step required to prevent any such eventuality in the future will be taken. @DefenceMinIndia @PIB_India @PIBHindi
— Nirmala Sitharaman (@nsitharaman) April 6, 2018
The Ministry of Home affairs website too went offline due to ‘technical problems’. The Spokesperson Bharat Bhushan denied any incidence of hacking. “There is no hacking of MHA website. NIC is in the process of technical up-gradation,” the MHA spokesperson said in a press statement.
The website of Ministry of Labour and Employment could not be reached either
The Election Commission website remained down since the morning and was restored around 8.15 pm.
The Ministry of Law and E-Gazette website could not be reached either.
—