Indian Company TATA Power's breach by cyber-attack group of china, Confirmed by Tata.
Tata Power, a leading power generation company in India, has confirmed it was hit by a cyberattack.
"Tata
Power cyberattack impacted IT systems; bill payment portal down for a
week" by indiatimes.com
After
that, the minister of India "Power Minister stresses
on policy action, cybersecurity of national grid"
In
a brief statement released on Friday, the Mumbai-based company said
that the attack impacted some of its IT systems.
“The
company has taken steps to retrieve and restore the systems. All
critical operational systems are functioning; however, as a measure
of abundant precaution, restricted access and preventive checks have
been put in place for employee and customer-facing portals and
touchpoints,” it said in its filing (PDF) with local
stock exchanges.
Tata Power did not share any further
specifics on the matter. The PR representative refused to answer
questions related to the nature of the attack and its impact on the
organization and declined to say whether any data was stolen. “As
stated in the Statement, the Company has taken steps to retrieve and
restore the systems. All critical operational systems are
functioning,” the representative said.
The company
generates, transmits, and retails power in the South Asian nation
and aims to double the share of clean energy in its
portfolio to 60% in five years from about a third now, with a target
to become net zero by 2045. It claims to have an installed
and managed electricity generation capacity of 13,974MW, which is the
highest in the country.
In the recent past, Tata Power has
also shown interest in growing its business through rooftop solar and
microgrids, storage solutions, solar pumps, EV charging
infrastructure, and home automation. The company serves more than 12
million consumers via its distributor companies.
The
Indian government has highlighted the cybersecurity of the country’s
nationwide electricity network as a challenge in its public
statements. A report by U.S.-based cybersecurity company Recorded
Future in April alleged that Chinese state-sponsored
hackers had targeted the Indian power sector in a long-term project.
According to a media report, the Ministry of External Affairs of
India spokesperson Arindam Bagchi responded to that report and said
the country had not raised this issue with China. China’s foreign
ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian reportedly refuted the
allegation.
It further said it has taken steps to retrieve
and restore the affected machines, adding it put in place security
guardrails for customer-facing portals to prevent unauthorized
access.
The Mumbai-based electric utility company, part of
the Tata Group conglomerate, did not disclose any further details
about the nature of the attack, or when it took place.
That
said, cybersecurity firm Recorded Future in April disclosed attacks
mounted by China-linked adversaries targeting Indian power grid
organizations.
The network intrusions were said to have
been aimed at "at least seven Indian State Load Dispatch Centers
(SLDCs) responsible for carrying out real-time operations for grid
control and electricity dispatch within these respective
states."
The attacks were attributed to an emerging
threat cluster Recorded Future is tracking under the name Threat
Activity Group 38 (TAG-38).
The company further assessed
that the targeting is intended to facilitate information gathering
related to critical infrastructure assets or is likely a precursor
for future activities.
China refuted the allegations that
it was involved, stating that "many of U.S. allies or countries
with which it cooperates on cybersecurity are also victims of U.S.
cyber attacks."
We are sure that additional details
will come out in the days ahead as Tata isn’t a tiny company and
parties will usually filter out sooner or later. Watch this space for
details.
Reference: CyberTalos,
https://www.tatapower.com/ , https://www.tatapower-ddl.com, https://techcrunch.com
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