Sectors that top cybercriminals' list in India

Govt, telecom, defence sectors most attacked by cybercriminals

Cybercriminals are increasingly targetting sensitive information from sectors including government, utilities and defence to access public data and other critical information, a government official said on Friday.

"With increasing number of devices, the sophistication of attacks is also going up. Government is the most attacked sector, followed by telecom, banking, energy and defence," CERT-In Director General and Group Coordinator of E-Security and Cyber Law Division Gulshan Rai said at an event in New Delhi.

Stating that even as cybercriminals continually try to scan data and plant malware, he said: "The government is resilient and has been improving security."

As per information reported to and tracked by the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), a total of 21,699, 27,605, 28,481 and 32,323 websites were hacked by various hacker groups spread across the world during the year 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014, respectively.

These also include a total number of 308, 371, 189 and 155 government websites hosted under 'gov.in' and 'nic.in' domains during the year 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014, respectively, Minister of Communications and IT Ravi Shankar Prasad said in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha.