Kochi: A group of Kerala websites, including that of Kochi Metro Rail, was hacked on Wednesday in a cyber attack that was claimed by a man who turned up on Onmanorama’s Facebook page.
The sites were brought back up by 12.30 pm.
The hackers had posted a picture with the caption that reads: ‘Pakistan Zindabad’. It also reads ‘just save my bro’ and ‘hacked by S@NT3T3’. The hackers targeted a group of websites hosted by the same server and the sites were inaccessible since morning.
Soon after Onmanorama reported the hacking of the official website of the Kochi Metro, a person who claimed to be the hacker turned up on its Facebook page.
The person with the profile name ‘Abil de Abil’ claimed that s/he hacked the website to ‘send support to his bro from Pakistan’.
The Metro authorities had filed a complaint with the police. It was the state-owned Centre for Development of Imaging Technology (C-DIT) that was managing the Kochi Metro website.
In a post on Onmanorama’s FB page, the person also claimed of hacking into 67 websites based in Kerala. Most of them belong to government departments. When checked, it was found that most of the sites were offline.
It is not the first time that government websites are hacked in Kerala.