Suspected malware attack on NIC traced back to email from B'luru firm; FIR registered

Bengaluru/ New Delhi: The Delhi Police on Friday said it has registered a case on the complaint of the National Informatics Centre (NIC) about a suspected malware attack after one of its staffers faced difficulty in accessing his official email account on a computer.

An email was sent to the official ID of an NIC staffer and when the receiver clicked on the link, it appeared that malware had set in on that particular computer, a senior police officer said, adding the NIC claimed there is no loss of data.

The FIR was registered in the first week of September on the complaint of the NIC, following which the Delhi Police investigated the matter and has identified the source, he said.

While the police said they cannot disclose the source yet as they are proceeding further in their investigation sources said that the origin of the mail was traced back to a Bengaluru-based IT firm. It is also suspected that the mail with the bug was sent from the US using a proxy server to the Bengaluru-based firm.

The reports being carried in certain sections of the media about widespread cyber intrusion involving high offices are unsubstantiated and do not reflect the current stage of investigation, police said in a statement.

The National Informatics Centre (NIC) of the Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology is providing network backbone and e-governance support to central and state governments, UT administrations, districts and other government bodies.

In a statement, Additional PRO of Delhi Police Anil Mittal said, “A government employee had recently reported that he was having difficulty in accessing his official email account by the NIC which was lying unused for some weeks.”

“It was found by the NIC that there was an attempted breach by unidentified cyber actors — a kind of regular activity over cyberspace which was, however, detected by its robust cybersecurity systems,” he added.

Mittal said as an abundant precaution, a formal investigation into the matter has been launched and a case registered at the Delhi Police’s Special Cell.