On Saturday, police officials, familiar with the matter, disclosed that the online system of the Islamabad Safe City Authority was rendered offline following a hacking attempt. According to the officials who unveiled the incident, the attack transpired two days earlier, prompting the shutdown of the system, reports Dawn.Â
On Thursday, hackers infiltrated the primary server, gaining access to vital data and records, notably those linked to criminal databases. As a countermeasure, servers overseeing the Complaint Management System, Criminal Management Record System, Human Resources Management System, and several operational software and applications were promptly deactivated.
Despite the system’s firewall, engineered to notify authorities of unauthorized access attempts, officials disclosed a lack of backup or alternative servers to sustain the functionality of the software and applications. This deficiency necessitated their immediate shutdown.
Following the incident, the authority’s IT department proceeded to disable all logins to the software and applications, which serve as crucial gateways to various servers and operational software.
An officer emphasized that this breach was not a conventional hacking occurrence but rather stemmed from the exposure of login credentials. These credentials were compromised due to officials employing simplistic and easily deduced passwords. Furthermore, the system’s software and applications were found to be outdated, with expired licenses, amplifying its vulnerability.
Encompassing a broad spectrum of services, the impacted system comprises mobile applications, records of smart police vehicles, data from police stations, video analytics, operations of Islamabad Traffic Police, e-challan data, and criminal records.
Notably, the Safe City camera management system operates on distinct lines, ensuring its security. Being offline, it remains impervious to penetration without valid credentials.
Upon reaching out for comment, police spokesperson Taqi Jawad verified the hacking attempt and highlighted that the firewall promptly issued an alert, leading to the precautionary measure of shutting down all logins. He clarified that in the interest of security, all logins have remained disabled for the past forty-eight hours to facilitate updating credentials, thereby impacting access for numerous police personnel.
LUMBER NO. 1
The on reason behind it is that the system was using a crack vision of window. Mostly computer in Pakistani offices are using Windows 7 crack version which is very easy to hack the management system are getting 32k to 50k funds to buy these things but they buy Windows cd from market of 100 rupee.
The only solution is to install Kali Linux in all government computers as we know that Kali Linux is completely free to use. And Pakistan government have thousands of software engineers they should make their own softwares which will more private and powerful and less risk of hack
Wrong this not a windows problem, we don’t have professionals to handle this system. They don’t have professional firewalls with professional IT persons. In our country give bribery and get job. This system is every where every department.
LoL 12 year old edgelords giving their opinion on whether using Linux is good or not.
Stfu pleb!
The article mentions that the reason of hacking was simply by guessing someone’s login credentials
Once a hacker gets into a system, it should be considered vulnerable until a full inspection. You never know what backdoor they planted to get I’m easily a second time.
What a lot of rubbish. White British Hackers are in Pakistan.
This will continue in future because not the the IT department employees but also who hired them are incompetent and not trustworthy. Check any govt side and you will know how miserably the maintained the sites.
This hacking is mostly done by indians and they sell this data for free on their website hackersnation.com