The websites of various government offices have faced at least 50,000 cyberattacks over the past 10 days amidst the ongoing quota reform movement, State Minister for Posts, Telecommunications, and Information Technology Zunaid Ahmed Palak said on Tuesday.
Palak shared this information with journalists following an 'Emergency Meeting on Cyber Security at the Current Time' held at the Bangladesh Computer Council (BCC) in Agargaon, Dhaka.
"In the information we have so far, more than 50,000 cyberattacks have been carried out in the last 10 days. Hackers have tried to damage our eight government websites. However, none of these websites were completely hacked, and there has been no incident of data theft from any government website," Palak stated.
He explained, "The DNS system, as we call it, redirects users to another website when they attempt to browse a targeted website. The user is then shown a front page claiming that the website has been hacked."
Addressing the claim that Bangladesh Bank's website was hacked on July 22, Palak clarified, "Upon reviewing the situation, we found that Bangladesh Bank's website was not hacked. All their regular transactions and activities are proceeding normally. We identified and resolved the issue. However, the details of our investigation are strictly confidential, so I can't share more about it."
When asked if cyberattacks have increased due to the quota reform movement, Palak responded, "Cyberattacks happen constantly. Attackers are always attempting to hack the websites of various organisations under national security. They also target banks and financial institutions to extort money. But yes, there has been a slight increase in cyberattacks recently in connection with the movement, which is true."