CHENNAI: Some websites managed by IIT Madras were hacked by unknown persons on Wednesday night and these sites have been brought down to find out the problem.
The websites of six departments, five centres of excellence and central facilities including the central library, central electronic centre were hacked. However, the premier institute’s main website (www.iitm.ac.in) and other departments’ websites were not hacked.
“One of the servers for our websites was hacked. It had some dynamic information like conference schedules and registration. It also had six departments’ sites and few centres, central facilities,” said Bhaskar Ramamurthi, director, IIT Madras.
“We have to allow outside people to give input like registration for conferences in some of the sites on this server. That makes it a little more vulnerable. This server got compromised. Obviously, somebody has found the weakness. So, we have to see what the weakness is,” he said.
There are two servers hosting the websites. The main website and other sites hosted on a different server in which outside people cannot input anything and it is much more secure.
“These particular sites have been brought down. We can restore the sites now. But, we are trying to find out the problem and how it got affected. We don’t want it to happen again,” he added.
The sites of biotechnology, civil engineering, humanities and social sciences, mathematics and mechanical engineering departments were hacked.
Some hacked websites
Biotechnology: https://biotech.iitm.ac.in
Civil Engineering: http://www.civil.iitm.ac.in
Humanities and Social Sciences: https://hss.iitm.ac.in
Management studies:http://www.doms.iitm.ac.in
Mathematics: https://mat.iitm.ac.in
Mechanical Engineering: https://mech.iitm.ac.in/
