Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh also warned the central government that the issue of cyber attack is not limited to Mumbai only, but it can spread across the country.
Mumbai| The Centre and the Maharashtra government have now come face to face over reports of Chinese hackers carrying out a cyber attack on Maharashtra Power Distribution Company. Maharashtra’s Energy Minister Nitin Raut has said that the MVA govt will put all the reports related to this matter in the Vidhan Sabha on Wednesday. Meanwhile, Union Energy Minister RK Singh said that the central govt does not have evidence of Chinese cyber attack. “It was a human error that led to power cut for in Mumbai for 10-12 hours,” he said.
Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh also warned the central government that the issue of cyber attack is not limited to Mumbai only, but it can spread across the country. He said this issue should not be politicized. The New York Times claimed in a report that the Chinese hackers attacked the Maharashtra Power Distribution system after the Galwan violence. Due to this, on October 12 last year, there was 10-12 hours of electricity cut in Mumbai.
“No such report in the investigation of two teams”
RK Singh said on Tuesday that two teams have investigated the Mumbai power outage. The first team highlighted in its report that the incident was caused by human error. This was not a cyber attack. The second team has reported in its investigation report that the cyber attack took place but was not related to the closure of the Mumbai grid.
Attacks on dispatch center, but did not reach the system
Singh said that there were cyber attacks on the load dispatch centers in our northern and southern region, but the malware did not reach our operating system. The Union Energy Minister said that Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh has informed him that there has been a cyber attack on his SCADA system in Mumbai.
No evidence that China or Pakistan behind cyber attacks
The Union Energy Minister said that we do not have any evidence to say that these cyber attacks were carried out by China or Pakistan. “Some people are saying that the gang behind these attacks is from China. But we do not have evidence to prove this,” he said.
The New York Times report was followed by the statements of two Maharashtra ministers on March 1. Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh, citing a report of the state’s cyber cell, said a cyber attack could be the reason for the massive power failure in Mumbai on October 12 last year. Deshmukh had said that the Maharashtra Cyber Cell in its initial report had raised the possibility that the data was transferred from a foreign server to the MSEB (State Electricity Board) server. However, Deshmukh did not name the country from which the data would have been transferred.
State Energy Minister Nitin Raut had also termed it a dangerous step.
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