Thane Police website hacking case: Cops register FIR, launch probe

Representative image. Pic/Istock

A day after the Thane city police website was hacked by unknown hackers, the cyber crime cell of Thane police launched investigations followed by the registration of an FIR in the matter. The website was hacked on June 14 at around 4 am and was restored more than five hours later.

Speaking to mid-day.com, Sunil Lokhande, Deputy Police Commissioner, Cyber Crime, Thane Police said, "FIR was registered against unknown suspects under sections 43, 43A and 66 of Information Technology Act."

The Thane Police have made multiple teams to probe the matter which is investigating the entire matter and has also been analysing if any data was stolen from the website, sources said.

Many Indian websites including that of Thane city police were allegedly attacked by international hackers on Tuesday. The primary investigations have suggested that its origin was from some of the east Asian countries, a senior cyber crime official have said, strongly suspecting that the cyber attack could have been due to recent incidents of communal nature at various places in the country.

The Thane police had initially noticed the problem on their official website at around 4 am on Tuesday and by 9:30am the website was restored.

The message appearing on the website mentioned that the website was allegedly hacked by 'One Hat Cyber Team.'

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"Hacked by one hat cyber team. Hello Indian Government, Hello everyone. Again and again, you make trouble with the problem of the Islamic Religion. Hurry up and apologize to Muslims all over the world!! We don't stand still when our apostle is insulted," a message displayed on a black background on the screen read.

Additional DG, Cyber Cell, Maharashtra, Madhukar Pandey had on Tuesday told mid-day.com, "After recent incidents of communal nature at various places in the country, we have observed by our monitoring of social media and other platforms that some hacker groups have given a call to hack and deface Indian websites. It is reported that many Indian sites have been attacked in the last 3 days."

He said, "Today, the Thane police website was defaced. About that, we informed CERT (Computer Emergency Response Team) and also the NIC (National Informatics Centre) teams and then it was shut down. We are also coordinating with the national critical information infrastructure protection center wherever necessary. All units as well as NIC have been advised to examine the vulnerabilities in their websites and plug gaps, some of these sites may become vulnerable while undergoing a transition to a safer environment. The exact nature of the attack is being investigated but primary info suggests its origin is from some east Asian countries. Legal action is being taken. We are in touch with CERT, NIC and other relevant organisations."