India involved in cyber crimes: Rehman Malik

Islamabad: Former Interior Minister and Chairman Senate Standing Committee on Interior Senator A. Rehman Malik has said that India is involved in cybercrimes worldwide and stealing sensitive national data of various countries for different nefarious activities.

While talking in the Senate Standing Committee on Information Technology & Telecom, he directed that the Ministry of Information Technology should go beyond firewall and create an iron curtain to secure the sensitive official websites.

Senator A. Rehman Malik said that Indian hackers are notorious for their repeated evil intrusion in cyberspace throughout the world. He said that Indian hackers made more than 200 attempts to attack the website of Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP).

He said that an Indian company got ingress into our Election Commission of Pakistan through UNDP as the Result Management System (RMS) was launched by ECP in collaboration with UNDP. He added that Indian Company used a company namely Kaulitatem Inc. and the security of RMS was certified by an Indian company namely EC-Council with its head office in Hyderabad, India.

He said that Indian company has fully coordinated and managed the RMS software and they will continue to hack not only ECP website but also other related departments therefore the government should immediately replace the RMS and create iron curtains to stop such attacks. Senator A. Rehman Malik calls upon the government to extend its full technical and other assistance to ECP to replace the RMS that important national data could be secured.

He said that ‘’I warn India to stop doing cyber-terrorism against Pakistan’’. He said that as per available authentic information, after the Pulwama attack in Indian Occupied Kashmir, Pakistan faced its worst cyber-attacks in the history by India as an Indian group namely ‘Team I Crew’ hacked above 200 Pakistani websites. He said that attacking any sovereign state through hacking its different institutions’ websites is a cybercrime and comes under Cyber-Terrorism.

Senator A. Rehman Malik proposed in the meeting of the committee that the Minister of Information Technology & Telecom give a detail briefing on cybercrimes, cyber-attacks and the measures taken by the Ministry in this regard.

While responding to a question Senator A. Rehman kMalik said he has already expressed his dissatisfaction over the Punjab police report on killing and sexual assault of three children in Kasur and has directed for a detail briefing on the issue in the upcoming meeting of Senate Standing Committee on Interior. He also said that he was not satisfied with the sexual assault of a boy by his inmate in Adiala Jail and will be issuing a notice for a briefing on the overall situation and condition of jails across the country.