IIT Madras servers shutdown!
Yet another incident of Cyberattack, Computer Servers of the prestigious university Indian Institute of Technology, Madras went down on February 17, 2020, which also impacted email services of the prominent engineering institute of the country. The reason behind the server shutdown has not been revealed yet.
If it is a ransomware attack,
This will affect the institute’s credibility as IIT Madras has many ongoing exchange programs with foreign Universities
a cyber analyst added.
What damage can Cyberattacks cause?
While the extent of the damage is yet not known, a cyber attack on institutions such as IITs raises concern as they hold a treasure of data related to advance research, research programs, projects besides all this private data related to students, faculty, and alumni is on stake as cybercriminals are known to trade such valuable data on the dark web.
The event at IIT Madras comes close on the heels of a previous alleged cyber attack in October at Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant, which happened because a user had connected a malware-infected personal computer to the administrative network.
Has IIT Madras also joined the Cyberattacks Gallery?
According to DSCI ( Data Security Council of India), India hs the second-highest incidents of cybersecurity attacks between 2016-2018, where the average cost of a data breach in India has raised 7.9% since 2017 with an average cost per breach record amounting to INR4,552.
Recently NPCIL had confirmed a cyberattack at Kudankulam Nuclear Power plant, which was orchestrated by “Dtrack” malware.
Dtrack is a virus used by North Korea based hacker group Lazarus.
Countermeasures taken by IIT Madras
IIT Madras has partnered with the tech giant Microsoft to help the institute get access to the server again.
IIT Madras said that the institute is investigating the reasons behind the sudden server shutdown. An IIT-Madras professor added that
The institute has a back-up for the email service system and will restore the system soon.
The institute has set up an investigation team that includes senior officials of IIT Madras and Microsoft engineers working on getting to the root cause of the server shutdown.
Conclusion: The Email servers of IIT Madras went down on February 17, 2020, while The institute did not comment whether it was a malware or a ransomware attack. The institute has partnered with the tech giant Microsoft to help the institute get access to the server again.
