3 Days After An Alleged Hack, BJP Website Is Still Under Maintenance

SUMMARY

The website was allegedly hacked on March 5, 2019, showed abusive messages

In February, BJP Goa and BJP Chhattisgarh websites were hacked

The hackers may have stolen the database, alleges cybersecurity expert Robert Batiste

With over 110 million members, the world’s largest political party and India’s ruling party, Bhartiya Janta Party’s official website bjp(.org) was allegedly hacked on March 5, 2019.

The website since then has been showing that it is under maintenance; however, data security experts suspect that the hackers have not only hacked the website but might also have stolen the entire database of all the BJP members and its donors.

French cybersecurity expert Robert Batiste (a.k.a Elliot Alderson) tweeted, “3 days after being hacked, the official website of @BJP4India is still in “maintenance”. Before wiping everything, I can bet the hackers stole the database with all the BJP members and donors details. If the hackers are seeing this message, I would love to discuss with you.”

Back on March 6, BJP IT Cell head Amit Malviya stated that the website will be likely to functional by March 7, which clearly hasn’t happened. Malviya referred the website being down due to a technical glitch and not being hacked. He said, “We are not filing an FIR with the police as the site is down only due to a technical glitch.”

However, the messages that initially popped up on the webpage said otherwise. The immediate screenshots after it was attacked showed not only abusive message on top but it also mocked the Prime Minister Narendra, showing a meme with Modi and German Chancellor Angela Merkel in it.

In the last one month, numerous websites have been hacked with hackers stealing the database and selling it on darknet. On February 11, some 617 million online account details stolen from 16 hacked websites were on sale on the dark web, reported The Register.

BJP websites have also been targeted by Pakistani hackers. Last month, the Pakistani hackers while hacking BJP Goa webpage (Goabjp.org) showed a plain white screen that read “#HACKED” and “PAKISTAN ZINDABAD”, they also later succeeded in hacking BJP Chhattisgarh website, according to an ANI report.

Earlier in 2018, over a hundred central and state government websites were hacked by hackers from across the world including China, Brazil and Pakistan.