Andhra Hackers, a body of ethical hackers, said that JNTU’s websites of Kakinada and Hyderabad can be hacked in two minutes and the entire database can be removed or changed.
Stating that they had intimated JNTU authorities regarding the risk and that the latter have not responded, members of Andhra Hackers say that the university’s web page contents and marks can be changed.
People can log on as the principal and any information regarding courses and joining dates can be removed or edited.
Sai Satish, an ethical hacker and active member of Andhra Hackers, says, “I was just checking some websites and found that few like those of Anna University and JNTU were weak, but Anna University has better security than JNTU.”
“JNTU’s Kakinada and Hyderabad sites can be hacked into by anyone and can be taken over if they do not act immediately. I have sent them an example and warned them about this, but we haven’t got any response yet. We said we will do it for free; we just want the students and the university’s information to be safe.”
Universities around the world have been at the receiving end of hacking for quite some time. In September 2011, Harvard University’s homepage was hacked and visitors to the site were greeted with the message “Syrian Electronic Army Were Here”.
A year back the web portal of Christ University could not be accessed for a few days. In July, the Pakistani University’s websites were hacked by Indian students with the message: “Stop Terrorism Else Each and Every Pakistani Website will be hacked”.
Later, in August, the website of an Italian University was hacked and a lot of data was stolen.
When contacted. Prof. B. Prabhakara Rao, Director of Evaluation in JNTU, Kakinada says, “Yes, we were informed about our website’s vulnerability. I have informed the higher authorities regarding the same. We are moving carefully because some random person calling us and informing that our website is weak is hard to believe.”
“However, he had said he would not charge anything, so we are planning to arrange a meeting with the technicians of our website and the person from Andhra Hackers.”
Source : DC
