India
oi-Madhuri Adnal
Around 10 Uttarakhand government websites, including the Chief Minister’s Relief Fund portal, were hit by a malware attack on Saturday, forcing authorities to temporarily take them offline before restoring them a few hours later.
The state’s Information Technology Development Agency (ITDA) said the cyberattack targeted multiple departmental websites. As soon as the malware was detected, the affected portals were taken offline to stop the attack from spreading while cybersecurity teams began recovery work.
Around 10 Uttarakhand government websites, including the Chief Minister’s Relief Fund, were hit by a malware attack on Saturday but were restored within hours due to secure backups implemented after a major 2024 cyberattack.
ITDA Director Alok Pandey said the situation was brought under control quickly. Thanks to secure backup data stored at the state data centre, the websites were restored after several hours of technical work.
Among the affected portals were those of the Chief Minister’s Relief Fund, Public Works Department (PWD), Food and Civil Supplies Department, Uttarakhand Renewable Energy Development Agency (UREDA), State Tax Department, Employees’ State Insurance Corporation (ESIC), Transport Department and Tourism Department. Officials said around 10 government websites were impacted in total.
The swift restoration was possible because Uttarakhand had strengthened its cybersecurity systems after suffering its biggest cyberattack in October 2024. In that incident, nearly 90 government websites, including the Chief Minister’s Helpline, went offline for several days, disrupting public services across the state.
Learning from that attack, the ITDA had ensured that critical government data was backed up securely at the state data centre. Officials believe those measures prevented Saturday’s malware attack from causing widespread disruption and helped restore services much faster.
