Pak hackers target Army sites, foiled

The websites of Army Public School (APS), Srinagar, and APS, Ranikhet, were targeted with inflammatory propaganda, while APS, Srinagar, also faced a distributed-denial-of-service assault. Another attempted breach targeted the Army Welfare Housing Organisation (AWHO) database and a simultaneous effort was made to compromise the Indian Air Force Placement Organisation portal. All four sites were promptly isolated and restorative measures were taken. No operational or classified networks were affected at any stage, according to sources.

Security establishment sources revealed that the cyber attacker operated under the moniker “IOK Hacker” – Internet of Khilafah. The group aimed at defacing pages, disrupting online services and harvest personal information. India’s layered cybersecurity infrastructure detected the intrusions in real time and swiftly traced their origin to Pakistan. The sources indicated that Pakistan had shifted its focus toward publicly accessible welfare and educational websites after failing to penetrate mission-critical national networks.