A group of Indian hackers collectively known as Indian Black Hats launched a symbolic cyber attack against Pakistan for the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, The Hindu reports.
The team hacked two government sites and ten privately owned websites on Thursday, marking the fourth anniversary of the deadly Mumbai attacks which claimed the lives of 166 people.
The report quotes one of the hackers saying that the attack began in the early hours of Thursday as a tribute to the martyrs of 26/11, adding that the “payback” was still on.
Indian Black Hats were known as Indian Cyber Devils between. For the whole of 2014, the group was underground.
Websites that the Indian Black Hats hacked until evening on Thursday were for Canteen Stores Department of the army (www.csd.gov.pk) and a horse rearing centre for the army (www.mona.gov.pk), while a variety of non-government domains, including a online retail website (www.metroshoes.com.pk), as well were hacked by the Black Hats.
When checked on Friday, the websites were restored.
However, this is not the first time that hackers of the two countries have engaged in cyber warfare.
In September 2015, anonymous Pakistani hackers had launched a cyber attack by hacking some Kerala and Assam government websites, to which a Kerala-based hackers’ group replied by targeting a Pakistani government website.
India Today quoted Kislay Chaudhary, cyber security analyst and CEO of Indian Cyber Army saying, "There has been a sudden increase in the number of attacks this week, and the reason clearly is 26/11. Hackers from both the countries launch attacks on days of historic importance. Indian hackers keep tracking Pakistani websites and find their vulnerability. They wait for a particular day to deface it and post their message."