G20 Portal Saw 16 Lakh Cyberattacks A Minute During Summit In Sept: Centre

The Indian cybersecurity sector repelled numerous cyberattack attempts on the G20 portal during the summit and 16 lakh DDoS attacks per minute peaked at some point.

Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre (I4C) CEO Rajesh Kumar made the revelation during the annual conference. The I4C wing, which was established by the Ministry of Home Affairs, aims to provide a framework and eco-system for Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) to deal with cybercrime in a coordinated and comprehensive manner.

Responding to a query, Kumar said per minute, 16 lakh attacks were noted on the G20 account during the summit, and it started soon after the website was up and the attacks peaked during the summit.

He further clarified that the I4C, with the help of multiple Indian agencies concerned, managed to thwart these attacks and keep the website safe.

The officer raised concerns about some non-national foreign threat actors operating through the Virtual Private Network (VPN), showing their attempts from China, Cambodia and Malaysia. But he said it is very difficult to say the exact place, as VPN networks disguise the identity of the hacker’s real place.

As per cyber experts, non-national threat actors send Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) to disrupt and try to sabotage any site. These attacks could have originated from foreign countries.

The G20 summit was the eighteenth meeting of the G20. It was held in Delhi’s Bharat Mandapam International Exhibition-Convention Centre on September 9-10 last year.

Addressing the conference, Kumar also said more than 31 lakh cybercrime complaints have been registered so far on the National Cybercrime Reporting Portal (www.cybercrime.gov.in) since it was launched in August 2019.

Based on these complaints, he also said that more than 66,000 FIRs have been registered by Law Enforcement Agencies of states and union territories.

The officer said that an analytical report on the modus operandi of the top 50 cyber-attacks has been prepared by the I4C wing during 2023.

With the help of National Cyber Helpline Number 1930, Kumar said, the concerned agencies helped save over Rs 1,100 crore in defrauded money in three years by benefiting 4.3 lakh victims.