Cyber attack occurred on the server of MP Power Management Company, which caused the internet to go down in the company's office that made PMC unable to function. The company's account is also threatened. Apart from this, information about buying and selling electricity is also expected to be leaked.
For last 4 days, the company's IT cell has been involved in locating the cyber attack, but has no any firm information on its hand.
Ironically, in September last year Madhya Pradesh become the first state of the country to implement cyber crisis management plan developed by M.P. state load dispatch centre Jabalpur. Notably, Cyber Crisis Management Plan was developed in-house without taking the help of expert consultants and implemented after approval by Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-India), a government organization that responds to computer security incidents and promotes IT security practices and functions under the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology
MP Power Management Company is the most important company in Madhya Pradesh's power system, and it takes care of when, where and how much electricity the state needs and where it will be completed.
With electricity, there is a big drawback that it cannot be stored, so electricity has to be supplied at the same time when it is produced. The information on the availability of electricity at different power generation plants across the country are being tracked on the computers of the power management companies, through the Internet. The power management company buys electricity from companies with which it has power agreements.
Earlier officials of the power management company did the investigation, but the internet system was not able to improve. It was then understood that this is not a general technical flaw, but something else has damaged the MP Power Management Company's system. Although no virus or message like previous cyber attacks is displayed to the computer of a power management company, it has been considered a cyber attack.
Madhya Pradesh has a capacity to generate about 6000 MW of electricity and many a times some electricity remain unused by the state so it is then sold to other states. This entire process of buying & selling electricity is done on computer through internet and this buy-sale transactions are worth billions of rupees, But the computer system that has been installed for such an important and extremely important business.
Reportedly, the MP power management company did not take care of security of computer systems and using cyber security solutions like domestic computers. When when the internet stopped providing services, the PMC authorities did not consider it a cyber-attack. The PMC personnels however are not at fault because they are not trained enough in the field of Cybersecurity.
According to an PMC official, the company's servers are unable to do any work due to disturbances. All work from human resources is being affected. Only the IT department can provide information about technical malfunction in the server.
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