Bangladesh suffered over 50,000 cyberattacks in 10 days during quota protests: State Minister

Hackers have carried out more than 50,000 cyberattacks in several rounds in the past 10 days to take control of important government websites during the quota reform protests, State Minister for ICT Zunaid Ahmed Palak has said.

The hackers particularly targeted eight government websites to cause damage, but no website was completely hacked and there was no incident of stealing data from any website, he said after an emergency meeting on cyber security at Bangladesh Computer Council in Dhaka on Tuesday.

They used Domain Name System or DNS and diverted users to other pages containing messages from the hackers claiming to hack the website, according to him.

Asked if the cyberattacks increased because of the protests, the state minister said: “Cyberattacks are carried out all the time as the hackers try to hack websites of organisations under national security. They attack banks and financial institutions to steal money.

“But it’s true that cyberattacks have increased during the protests.”

He also claimed there was no government instruction to slow the internet down after the resumption of services following a total blackout during the protests.

He said the use of virtual private network, or VPN, to bypass security measures that have been in place to block social media has slowed down the internet all over the country.

VPN use has increased by 5,000 percent in this period, Palak said, citing technical people.