Mumbai, June 23: Amid reports of Chinese hackers attempting a cyber-attack on Indian Cyber Space, the Maharashtra government on Tuesday issued an advisory warning people not to fall a prey to the fake message. The warning comes at a time when people complained of receiving a message in the form of SMS and email, offering free COVID-19 testing. The Maharashtra Cyber Cell said this was a part of the phishing attack. Earlier too, reports had surfaced about such rumours on emails and messages.

In its advisory, the Maharashtra Cyber Department said Chinese cyber attackers planning a large scale phishing attack. It said the Chinese hackers are trying to impersonate government agencies and other organisations who have been asked to oversee the disbursement of government fiscal aid. Cyber Attack: Govt Warns Against Large-Scale Phishing Attacks Using COVID-19 As Bait to Steal Personal and Financial Information.

In the last few days, over 40,000 such attempts were made. The state cyber cell traced most of the hacking attempt to China’s Chengdu area. State Cyber Department Special IG, Y Yadav said, “In last 4-5 days, resources on cyberspace of India especially related to information, infrastructure and banking have been under attack from China. At least 40,300 such cyberattacks were attempted, most of them can be traced to Chengdu area of China.”

Advisory by Maharashtra Cyber Department:

Till now, it is not yet clear whether cyberattacks by Chinese hackers are state-sponsored. According to a report published in Republicworld, The attacks are broadly divided into three categories -one is a denial of service attacks, second is the internal protocol of hijacking attacks and the third is phishing attacks. Earlier, an alert was also issued by Indian security agencies about possible cyberattacks from China.

Reports of these cyberattacks from China surfaced amid a standoff between the Indian and Chinese armies in Eastern Ladakh. On June 15, violent clashes also erupted between the two armies at Galwan Valley. In the clashes, 20 Indian Army soldiers were martyred, while there were reports that 45 PLA troops were also killed or severely injured.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jun 23, 2020 06:46 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).