Suspected Pak, China Hackers Behind Sarathi Portal
Officials said no transactions took place until late afternoon on Tuesday as the portal remained non-functional. At several RTOs, staff accepted non-payment applications manually for later upload.
Hyderabad:V A day after a suspected technical glitch affected the Sarathi transport portal, disrupting services at the Regional Transport Offices across India, a senior official blamed foreign hackers — suspected to be from Pakistan or China — of targeting the transport portal’s server.
Speaking to Deccan Chronicle, National Informatics Centre (NIC) state coordinator for Telangana S. Kasi Reddy attributed the disruption to an abnormal surge in traffic. “On Monday, traffic on the Sarathi app surged to 95,000 against the normal load of around 5,000 users. Cybersecurity team detected the anomaly and shut down the portal as a precautionary measure. Though it was restored later, the glitch continued because the system had to regain its capacity, making the server slow down and intermittently unavailable.”
Referring to the suspected source of the attack, he said, “The Union ministry of home affairs, which deals with cyberattacks on public government portals, is aware that hackers from Pakistan and China are attempting to attack them. However, our firewalls and cybersecurity teams withstand such attacks, and our data remains safe and secure.”
“Government portals that have payment gateways are always under attack from these hackers. The ministry of home affairs is always one step ahead in stopping them.”
NIC said the Sarathi portal resumed operations on Tuesday afternoon. It is a centralised platform providing services including learner’s licence applications, driving licence issuance, slot bookings, renewals, and International Driving Permits, along with monitoring of driving schools and instructors.
Officials said no transactions took place until late afternoon on Tuesday as the portal remained non-functional. At several RTOs, staff accepted non-payment applications manually for later upload. However, hundreds of applicants were unable to access services and left after waiting.
NIC senior technical director Guntuku Prasad said, “For every state, we have a team that takes care of maintenance. The portal resumed operations on Tuesday afternoon… We have not received any such information regarding the Telangana transport department.”
Cybersecurity experts said attacks on public portals have increased, with agencies such as the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre and CERT-In working to detect and mitigate threats.
Suryanarayana Reddy, founder and director of SmarNcode Technologies, said, “Cyberattacks on public portals as well as listed companies are occurring continuously, which is why cybersecurity measures are becoming stronger. New malware is introduced every day. Using chatbots and AI tools, hackers are launching increasingly sophisticated attacks. It is like a war; cybersecurity teams must remain prepared every day.”
