Cyber-attackers who identified themselves as the "Pakistan Cyber Army" have hacked the website of India's top police agency, officials said Saturday. The website of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) was hacked by programmers who left a message saying that the attack was in revenge for similar Indian assaults on Pakistani sites, Press Trust of India said.
The hackers signed their message on the Indian police website: "Long Live Pakistan." CBI authorities said they were working to restore the site, which offered information to the public. The spokeswoman said she could not comment on Indian media reports that more than 200 other Indian sites had also been attacked by hackers.
"We came to know the CBI site had been compromised Friday night," the spokeswoman told AFP, asking not to be named. "It will take us a couple of days to restore the site." She said she could not immediately say who was responsible for the attack. The CBI has "registered a case" and is investigating the attack, she said.
The message posted on the CBI site said the attack was "in response to the Pakistani websites hacked by 'Indian Cyber Army'," the Press Trust of India (PTI) reported. "Hacked hahaa funny," the message said. "Let us see what you investigating agency so called CBI can do" (sic). Hackers had also infiltrated the server of the National Informatics Centre (NIC), which maintains most of the government's websites, PTI reported. Sunil Abraham, executive director of the Bangalore-based Centre for Internet and Society, said it would have been easy for attackers to get into the CBI public site as it was "not a particularly sensitive" one.