IIT-Madras websites hacked

HIGHLIGHTS

• Website with announcements on conferences to be hosted by IIT-M hacked
• The main website of IIT-M has not been hacked
• IIT may delink websites of conference announcements and cultural and technical fests to improve security

CHENNAI: Several websites managed by the Indian Institute of Technology - Madras have been hacked by unknown people. Besides the site that contains the announcements on conferences to be organised by the institute, six department websites, five centres of excellence sites and five other sites were also hacked.

The main website of IIT-M (https://www.iitm.ac.in/) has not been hacked. The hacked websites include http://www.cce.iitm.ac.in, https://saif.iitm.ac.in and https://biotech.iitm.ac.in.

"Some content of the university has been compromised after the websites were hacked," said IIT-Madras director of Bhaskar Ramamurthy. He said, "The website containing information about the conferences that will be held at IIT-Madras has been hacked. This is because we have given access to a lot of people to put up content on the website through a password. The password must have been leaked."

He said the website had weak security. "It has links to the cultural and technical fests. A lot of faculty members and students have access to this website. We have discussed this in the past, but we cannot help it. If we attempt to make the site more secure, then there will be complaints of delay about updating content on the website," said Ramamurthy.

IIT-M's annual cultural fest Saarang is scheduled to be held between January 4 and 8.

The institute has now decided to delink cultural and technical fests' websites. "We will have independent websites for cultural and technical fests, and the website for announcements about conferences will not have any information about the institute in the future," Ramamurthy said.

IIT-M's annual cultural fest Saarang is scheduled to be held between January 4 and 8.

The institute has now decided to delink cultural and technical fests' websites. "We will have independent websites for cultural and technical fests, and the website for announcements about conferences will not have any information about the institute in the future," Ramamurthy said.

There are 16 departments listed on the website. Apart from this, websites of the Centre for Technology and Policies, Centre for Continuing Education, Health Care Innovation Centre, National Cancer Tissue Biobank, National Centre for Combustion Research and Development were also hacked.

There are also websites for five other facilities -- Central Library, Sophisticated Analytical Instrumentation Centre, P G Senapathy Centre for Computing Research, Central Workshop and Central Electronic Centre.