Power Company in India Hacked and Billing Data Ransomed for 10 Million Rupees

Last week group of Hackers were able to gain the access of Uttar Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam (UHBVN) power company’s computer systems and Encrypted the billing data of their customers.

In order to retrieve the billing data, the hackers demanding 1 core rupees, or 10 million Rupess which is equivalent to approximately $150,000 US Dollars.

According to the The New India Express, the hackers gained access to the billing system after midnight on March 21st and when employees arrived on the 22nd, their computers were flashing ransom messages demanding 1 RS Core to recover the data.

The data can be recovered by inputting from logbooks and other hard copy sources. The loss of this billing data means that the power company would be unable to send out accurate billing to their customers for current consumption as well any that were previously owed.

According to an official from UHBVN, an investigation was conducted by the company and outside experts and “The database was found encrypted and the backup of the encrypted database was also taken for further retrieval”. They further stated that “there is no loss of billing data and the billing consumers would not be affected”.

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