New Delhi: Last year, China had tried a cyber attack on India after Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) soldiers were beaten up by Indian Army troops at Galwan Valley in Ladakh.
Not only this, due to its cyber attack, the country’s financial capital Mumbai was blacked out for a day. Hospitals had used generators at that time. The US newspaper New York Times revealed that odious activity of China.
Four months after the Galwan Valley violence, rail services were halted due to sudden power failure in Mumbai and the stock market was also stalled. 20 million people of the city were drowned in darkness at that time. Emergency generators had to be commissioned in hospitals so that ventilators would keep running.
This was the same period when the coronavirus pandemic was at its peak in India. On October 12 last year, there was a blackout in Mumbai. Now a new study has revealed that all these incidents were interlinked.
In the news reports of the time, it was also claimed by the Indian authorities that there could be a Chinese cyber attack behind the power outrage in Mumbai.
According to a New York Times report, all of these incidents were part of a major cyber campaign in China aimed at disrupting India’s power grid. Not only this, China had even planned that if India creates pressure in Galvan, it will submerge the entire country in darkness.
The study has revealed that amidst the ongoing standoff in the Himalayas, Chinese malware had penetrated the power supply control system in India. It also included high voltage transmission substations and thermal power plants.
The malware stream was summarised by Recorded Future in Somerville, Massachusetts, a company that studies the use of the internet by state actors. According to Recorded Future, most of the malware infused into the power grid was never activated.
Stuart Solomon, the Chief Operating Officer of Recorded Future, said a Chinese national support group named Red Echo “systematically leverages advanced cyber intrusion technology to reach nearly 12 key nodes across India quietly. It was seen to build a foothold. Power and transmission infrastructure.”
In October last year, Mumbai and suburban areas had witnessed a power outage because of a grid failure bringing the city, including its local trains called Mumbai’s Lifeline, to a complete halt. Because of this, people had to face difficulties.