A cybersecurity company, CloudSEK, conducted investigation into a plot to plant cyberattacks in the nation as Delhi ramps up preparations for the high-profile G20 Summit. The scheme was managed by various hacktivist clusters from Indonesia and Pakistan, two nearby nations.
India’s digital infrastructure has been identified by XVigil, CloudSEK’s contextual AI engine, as one of their main goals. The hacker organization Team Herox sent a message on the well-known messaging platform Telegram on September 7, which prompted the call for action to be highlighted.
This planned assault, dubbed as #OpIndia, is driven by a complicated web of political motivations, with many attacks seen as reprisal strikes in the continuing hacktivist battle between states. Mass defacement and distributed denial of service (DDoS) assaults are the main attack vectors that are predicted in this campaign, according to the experts.
The researchers highlighted that the hackers “sought support from other hacktivist organizations to join forces for a series of attacks scheduled for September 9-10, aligning perfectly with the G20 summit’s timeline.”
The gangs have previously prepared cyberattacks against both public and commercial organisations. DDoS assaults, data breaches, and account seizures are just a few of the strategies used throughout the process. Darshit Ashara, Associate Vice President of the Threat Intelligence Research team, claims that these criminals often take advantage of official VVIP gatherings to garner attention.
“The coordinated efforts by hacktivist groups from Indonesia and Pakistan to target India’s G20 Summit with planned cyberattacks are a stark reminder of the digital threats nations face,” Ashara said.
The team also brought attention to a separate hacktivist campaign that, on August 4th, attacked more than 1,000 websites. The techniques utilized in such operations include DDoS, defacement attacks, and account takeovers, which are trends emphasized in the CloudSEK study on hacktivist warfare.
The survey also said that the first quarter of this year saw a marked increase in these assaults, with India serving as one of the main targets. CloudSEK advised businesses to maintain vigilance and beef up their cybersecurity systems to thwart such harmful efforts in order to reduce the likelihood of such attacks.
