New Delhi: The Union Ministry of Health has asked the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (cert entry) from the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology to investigate an alleged hacking attempt on their website allegedly by a group of Russian hackers.
Cybersecurity experts from CloudSEK have claimed that the Russian hacker group ‘Phoenix‘ pointed to the website and managed to gain access to the ministry’s Health Management Information System portal, which has details of all Indian hospitals and employees and doctors.
“We have sought details and have asked CERT-In to investigate the alleged hacking of the Health Ministry website. They will file a report,” an official source said.
CERT-In is the national nodal agency for responding to computer security incidents, providing prevention and response services to government departments and private organizations.
According to a CloudSEK report, the group mentioned that the attack is “a consequence of India’s agreement on the oil price cap and the G20 sanctions on the Russia-Ukraine War“.
“The reason for this objective was the sanctions imposed against the Russian Federation where the Indian authorities decided not to violate sanctions and to comply with the maximum price for Russian oil approved by the G7 countries,” CloudSEK said.
“This decision resulted in multiple polls on Russian hacktivist Phoenix’s Telegram channel asking followers for their votes,” he stated.
CloudSEK stated that Phoenix has been active since January 2022 and is known for phishing scams and has a history of targeting hospitals based in Japan and the UK, a US-based healthcare organization that provides services to the US Army and DDoS attack on the website of the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, among others.
