China ‘hacked’ India power grid

Washington, March 1

Amid heightened border tension between India and China, a Chinese government-linked group of hackers targeted India’s critical power grid system through malware, a US company said in its study, raising suspicion whether last year’s massive power outage in Mumbai was a result of online intrusion.

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Recorded Future, a Massachusetts-based company, has detailed the campaign conducted by a China-linked threat activity group RedEcho targeting the Indian power sector. On October 12 last year, a grid failure in Mumbai resulted in massive power outages, stopping trains on tracks, hampering those working from home amid the pandemic. It took two hours for the power supply to resume for essential services, prompting CM Uddhav Thackeray to order an inquiry into the incident. Since early 2020, Recorded Future’s Insikt Group observed a large increase in suspected targeted intrusion activity against Indian organisations from the Chinese state-sponsored group.

The Ministry of Power on Monday said there was no impact on operations of Power System Operation Corporation due to any malware attack and that prompt actions were taken on advisories issued against such threats. However, it didn’t mention the Mumbai outage in its statement.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said it was “irresponsible and ill-intentioned” to make allegations without proof. — PTI