Over 8,000 attacks by cyber criminals were warded off during the 2010 Commonwealth Games, national security advisor Shivshankar Menon said today, seeking to highlight India's capabilities to avert such internet attacks.

"There were over 8,000 attacks during the Commonwealth Games on ticketing and other systems. This was pure malice. I can't see any advantage in targeting ticketing and other networks," Menon said an interactive session after releasing a report titled 'India's Cyber Security Challenge' brought out by the Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA).

In a major embarrassment to India's security establishment, the website of the Central Bureau of Investigation was recently hacked by persons who called themselves the 'Pakistani Cyber Army'.

The home page of the CBI website had a message warning the non-existent 'Indian cyber army' not to attack their websites.

Menon said, "While the NTRO (National Technical Research Organisation) has the task of protecting our defence cyber infrastructure, institutions like CERT-IN (Computer Emergency Response Team-India) have proved their worth during events like the Commonwealth Games in defending our open civil systems," Menon said.

In a perhaps inappropriate show of wit, Menon said websites were ''meant to be hit'', as their success is measured by how many 'hits' they get.

"There is invariably a hullabaloo when one of our websites is hacked. But websites are meant to be hit! So when a website is defaced by hackers, as happened to the CBI website, it is not necessarily a security breach though it might hurt one's pride," he said.

The CBI website of India's premier investigating agency is supposed to be one of the most secure in the country. The CBI is directly connected to the command centre of the world police organisation Interpol.

Indian intelligence agencies are constantly seeking ways to monitor cyber messages, much to the alarm of advocates of freedom of information. But at the same time, the agencies keep warning the government that full cyber security is not being ensured in government offices and that no such thing as a security audit exists so far.