DDOS effect: Internet services at near standstill at police HQ

FIR registered on complaint from service provider for Mumbai, Thane Police HQs

Among the scores of clients affected by the cyber attack on Internet Service Providers (ISPs) since last Monday is the Mumbai Police headquarters, where internet speed has slowed down to a near standstill for over a week.

The Hindu had reported on Saturday last week how a large number of small and medium ISPs across the State have been under a continuous attack known as Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS). The attack is being executed at an unprecedented speed of 200 gigabytes per second, which is affecting the clients of the ISPs, many of them corporate companies and commercial entities.

On Sunday, the Cyber Police in BKC registered an FIR under the Information Technology Act, in connection with the matter, and has initiated investigations. The complainant in the case is a Mumbai-based ISP named Syscon Infoway Pvt Ltd, which provides Internet services to clients in Mumbai and nearby cities.

Officials confirmed on Monday that Syscon, through one of its brands called Joister Broadband, supplies wireless Internet to the Mumbai Police Headquarters, Thane City Police Headquarters, and all police stations in the Thane City Police commissionerate.

Joister Broadband’s website, in its ‘About Us’ section, describes itself as a ‘Category ‘B’ ISP license holder (in the name of Syscon Infoway Pvt Ltd) for providing Internet broadband services in Mumbai, Maharashtra and Goa’. While the Thane Police said they have not experienced any major problems, several officials with the Mumbai Police Headquarters confirmed that Internet services had almost come to a standstill since last Monday.

“Even simple tasks like sending emails is taking too long and surfing is out of the question,” an officer said.

Currently, the Cyber Police are working on mitigating the attack by blocking Internet Protocol (IP) addresses being used by the accused as soon as they are identified. “The process of tracing the hackers is lengthy, but it has been initiated,” said an officer, who is part of the investigating team.

Officials said several million IP addresses infected with Trojans are being used to create a surge of activity on the target servers, causing those to crash.

The Hindu tried to contact the numbers on the Joister Broadband website several times on Monday, but could not get through to its operators.

The attack on ISPS

is being executed

at an unprecedented speed of 200 gigabytes per second