Cyber war erupts after Pak hackers maul Kerala govt web site

An unofficial cyber war broke out between India and Pakistan over the weekend after suspected Pakistani hackers hacked the official web site of the Kerala government.

An online vigilante group, which calls themselves The Mallu Cyber Soldiers on Facebook along with several other covert Indian teams, claim to have retaliated by defacing more than 100 Pakistani sites, including a few of the country's government portals.

Some of the hacked web sites carried pictures of the flag of Pakistan set ablaze, and many of them displayed a warning, telling troublemakers to stay away from Indian cyber space.

Earlier, on Sunday, a pro-Pakistani group allegedly hacked into the Kerala government site and posted an image of a burning Tricolor along with the messages 'Security is just an illusion' and 'We are Team Pak Cyber Attacker.'

The exact identity of the main hacker isn't known, though he seems to go by the name Faisal.

The Indian hackers started the counter attack, '#OpPak', in response to the defacing of kerala.gov.in, reportedly breaking into more than 200 Pakistan web sites, including Pak President's official web site pakistan.gov.in, Sate Development Organisation, culture.gov.pk and e-government.gov.pk.

The twitter handle of Indian Hacking News called the operation a 'massive payback', and claimed that the 'desi' hackers would bring Pak cyberspace to a standstill.

This is not the first time cyber criminals from Pakistan have targeted Indian web sites. Earlier this year, a Pakistani cyber security firm was accused of stealing Indian defence data.

Similar allegations were leveled against Chinese hackers too recently.

The official website registered by the Kerala government is up and running at present. Apart from The Mallu Cyber Soldiers, certain other Indian hacker groups called Hell Shield Hackers, Team Hind Hackers and CY83R_P1R4735 also claim credit for taking down a long list of Pakistani portals in answer to the attack.