US-based cybersecurity company Recorded Future in a report says Indian Railways may have been cyberattacked by Chinese state-backed hackers

The Sino-Indo relations have been in the doldrums after the Galwan Valley clash late last summer, though improvement was seen in the recent few months what came as an unexpected thaw was a report published by US-based cybersecurity group Recorded future (which monitors state-sponsored cyberattacks) of how Chinese state-based hackers have been targeting Indian power and port infrastructure.

The group had earlier released a report of how Chinese state-backed hackers may have been responsible for the power outage in Mumbai last year adding that malwares may have been installed in an additional 10 power-related companies and 2 port management companies as a strategic tool to be used in case of heightened bilateral relations in the future and in what they called as a capability show-off.

Now an additional report released by the group on Monday indicates the possibility that the state transporter- Indian Railways may also have been cyberattacked by the same hackers. However, the group has cautioned that though there is a possibility that Indian Railways may have been attacked, still it has not been able to access enough data to prove the same.

“The attack was unsettling because the hackers targeted the civilian infrastructure. It should not have happened; The Chinese will continue this sort of targeting in the future…China will continue to exert pressure on their neighbors” said Christopher Ahlberg, Recorded Future’s CEO and Co-Founder.

From the nature of the attacks, it is seen that it was just a muscle-flexing activity and a capability demonstration to send out a message rather than espionage activity. The Indian Railways could prove very beneficial to the armed forces in the case of an unfortunate scenario of war, where the trains can be used to move troops quickly to the frontline. Any sort of even suspicion of it being hacked should be a great cause of concern for India’s national security.

Maharashtra power minister confirms the attack and calls for a ban on the use of Chinese equipment.

Maharashtra’s Energy Minister Nitin Raut in a statement on Wednesday, 3 March confirmed that the Mumbai power outage was indeed a cyber-attack which was confirmed by a Maharashtra cyber cell report, the central power Minister has dismissed the claims claiming it was a human error creating confusion regarding the same. Nitin Raut then after tabling the cyber cell report went on to call a ban on the use of Chinese equipments for the strategic power sector.

Nitin Raut said on the floor of the legislative house, “SCADA unit that balances load dispatch as per supply and demand shows the entry of eight Trojan horse malware from China, UK and other places by breaking firewall. 8 GB of data was stolen. Our department won’t use any Chinese equipment from now on.”