As per the analysis of the national cyber security watchdog, five servers of the All Indian Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) were affected by a recent cyber attack which led to encryption of approximately 1.3 terabytes of data, union minister for state for electronics and information technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar said to the Parliament on Friday.
Chandrasekhar, in a written reply to the Parliament, said that the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) evaluated the incident but noted that AIIMS servees were managed by them only.
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“As per preliminary analysis, servers were compromised in the information technology network of AIIMS by unknown threat actors due to improper network segmentation, which caused operational disruption due to non-functionality of critical applications,” the MoS said, adding “CERT-In and other stakeholder entities have advised necessary remedial measures.”
He was responding to a query raised by Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) Sushil Modi , who urged to provide details on the quantum of data that was compromised during the recent AIIMS cyber attack last year. On the question of the number of cybersecurity incidents reported in the country in the last five years, Chandrasekhar informed that 4.5 million cases were reported and tracked during the said time period.
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Opening up on the government’s plan to cut down on such attacks in the future, the MoS added that the National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS) had formulated a draft National Cyber Security Strategy, which aims at holistically addressing issues of security of the national cyberspace.
The AIIMS, Delhi allegedly faced a cyber attack on November 23, paralysing its servers. A case of extortion and cyber terrorism was registered by the Intelligence Fusion and Strategic Operations (IFSO) unit of the Delhi Police on November 25.