On March 22, the All India Institute of Local Self Government (AIISG) here received an e-mail titled “item delivered” on its office account. It contained a vexing message.
“All your documents, photos, databases, and other important personal files were encrypted using strong RSA-1024 algorithm with a unique key. To restore your files you have to pay 0.25461 BTC (bitcoins),” it said.
With hindsight, the State police now believe that it was a forerunner of Saturday’s crippling “ransomware” cyberattack that blocked individual users and government services in the West from accessing information on their respective computers. The AIISG could have been a random target.
Scores of police computers in Andhra Pradesh were hit in the sweeping malware attack that spanned continents.
State ‘spared’
The police said so far there was no information that any computers or cyber networks in Kerala had been affected by the weaponised software.
It was allegedly stolen from US intelligence’s inventory of top secret cyber tools used to break into or cripple computer networks of the country’s spying targets.
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, who was briefed by the police on the gravity of the attacks, on Saturday warned citizens from opening e-mails from suspicious and anonymous addresses.
Kerala Police Cyberdome, the State law enforcement’s cybercrime research centre, had investigated the ransomware attack on the AIISG in detail to formulate a plan to thwart similar ones on key State services.
The hackers had given the AIISG three days to pay the bitcoin ransom (One bitcoin, a digital currency, is valued at an estimated ₹1 lakh), to an e-wallet site.
They had also suggested the site from which the AIISG could buy bitcoins through e-payment.
16,000 files hit
The attackers listed links from which their target could download the “decryptor” to unlock their computers once the ransom was paid. The police said that more than 16,000 files were locked up. They were successfully decrypted later.
Since March, Cyberdome officials have send advisories to key departments asking them to update their systems and create back-up of files.
They were planning a “ransomware school” to develop tools to study and thwart such attacks. A high-level police conclave to discuss cyberthreats is in the offing.
