The Ministry of External Affairs(MEA) of India is in news for becoming a target of a cyber attack that led to the data breach and now data sale. According to an update released to the press, the email servers of MEA were targeted by a sophistication driven cyber attack leading to access of information by hackers.
A hacker who is extremely active on the dark web claims to own the data siphoned from the email server of the foreign affairs ministry. The cyber crook has now put the info on sale that includes email ids and passwords of at least 15 bureaucrats and a BJP Minister who gets updates direct from the intelligence wing.
Cybersecurity Insiders have gained knowledge that the data is being sold for Rs 6 lakhs to 22 lakhs- appx 2 million and cyber criminals from nations like China, Pakistan, and Afghanistan are showing a lot of interest in purchasing the info.
The attack occurred when the Indian government was said to receive a detailed report on last year’s cyber attack on AIIMS servers that embarrassed Prime Minister Shri Narender Modi’s government to a large extent in an international arena.
North Korea’s Lazarus Group is suspected to be behind the incident, though an official conformation is awaited!
NOTE- On January 24th,2023, the US Law enforcement agency FBI announced that the $100m hack of June last year, where criminals siphoned around $100m Ethereum, was conducted by the Lazarus Gang and they claim to have enough evidence to prove that the gang was behind the heist after it laundered the stolen funds from January 13th of this year that came to the notice of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Lazarus used RAILGUN, a new protocol, to obscure its transactions with the victim and even tried their level best to swap the stolen crypto from about 11 Ethereum addresses with Bitcoins.
