Karnataka government’s procurement portal shut down after cyber attack

BENGALURU: The Karnataka government’s online portal for procurement, which is used to award tenders, is currently not functioning after it was attacked by hackers last week.

The website — https://eproc.karnataka.gov.in/, is now displaying a message that it is under maintenance, and will be available soon. Tenders scheduled to close during the first week of August have been postponed, as per the message on the site. A press note states that the portal was suspended last week after detection of the attack.

He portal is a part of the e-governance department, which has filed a complaint with the cybercrime police, both of whom are investigating the hack. The refund section of the portal was reportedly targeted. Officials from the e-governance department were quoted as saying that hackers could not access the bids and tenders section as they were encrypted, but managed to access the refund section, which contains details of the funds to be returned to contractors upon completion of work.

The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team —a nodal agency to deal with cyber security threats, under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, has also been informed and is working on identifying the extent of the attack.