Attackers Hijack Indian Government Websites to Mine Cryptocurrency

Hackers stole the processing power of several Indian government websites to mine cryptocurrencies, researchers found.

Citizen portals such as that of the municipal administration of Andhra Pradesh (AP), Tirupati Municipal Corporation and Macherla municipality are among the hundreds of Indian websites that are found to be infected by cryptojacking malware. Cryptojacking, as the term indicates, allows hackers to access victims’ computers for the sole purpose of mining cryptocurrencies. Hackers do this by fooling victims into clicking malicious links on emails, or by infecting websites with JavaScript code by loading it into the victims’ browsers.

They seem to have done the same to many of these government websites mainly because they have high traffic volume, found Indrajeet Bhuyan, one of the security researchers behind the revelation.

“Hackers target government websites for mining cryptocurrency because those websites get high traffic and most people trust them,” he…