Cyber war escalates: Pakistani hackers 'take revenge'

A group of Pakistani hackers going by the name of ‘Predators PK’ hacked over 200 Indian websites on Friday, as a form of retaliation to the recent cyber attack on Pakistani sites carried out by the Indian Cyber Army (ICA).

The hackers’ modus operandi was similar to the ICA attack, with pages developed by the hackers being inserted onto Indian servers and sites being hacked to root level. While the ICA had focused on hacking government websites, Predators PK focused on India’s Central Bureau of Investigation (http://cbi.nic.in/), college websites, NGOs, Indian companies and firms and religious sites among others. Some of the sites appeared damaged while a majority of the sites were still functional aside from hosting the page inserted by the hackers.

Unlike the ICA attack which was cited as ‘revenge for 26/11′, the page inserted by Pakistani hackers did not suggest ideological motivations, but simply revenge. The principal message by a hacker going by the handle, HEX786 read:

This is Just A Warning To All Script Kiddies Indians Hackers. Stop Being no0bs and Defacing Pakistani Web Sites Dont prove Us to Do Something. Your Security Was good But We Like Breaking it !

HEX786 also commented on The Express Tribune website, stating:

before this gov web sites defacement Pakistani hacker hacked in 1200 Indians web sites. we hacked BJP Web site Nehor web site 5 top Hackers forums. Indians Media Web sites All site on the Record in Google.We R already Fighting Cyber War the indians Started Against Pakistan… its Our gov Weakness they are hosted Web sites on Cheap Web servers. All Pakistani Nation Should Understand Pakistani hackers is a big Power on the internet.Now the Pakistani government should strictly protect their sites.We had told them the same day when the problem was Created… Pakistani people should not worry because pakistani Hackers alive.

A complete list of websites purportedly hacked by Predators PK is currently circulating online

A group that goes by the name of the Indian Cyber Army hacked into 36 of the Pakistan Government’s websites. While the message left by the hackers has been removed, some of these websites are also temporarily out of order.