Cyber Incident Victim: Supreme Court of Pakistan
Date:
Mar 2023
Location:
Pakistan
Summary
The Supreme Court of Pakistan's official website was taken over by attackers of unknown origin who posted a message announcing a spring sale, prompting widespread sharing of screenshots on social media; government IT specialists restored the site after a brief disruption, after which a COVID‑19 advisory appeared urging only essential visitors despite low case numbers in the capital, while it remained unclear whether any data was exfiltrated or the exact length of the outage. In a separate incident, the Pakistani online retailer Naheed suffered a breach after a developer’s laptop was compromised via phishing, leading to the alleged theft of up to twenty‑three thousand user records and order details containing personal and payment information that were later posted on the dark web.
| CIA Posture | Motives | Tactics, Techniques & Procedures |
|---|---|---|
| Available to members | 3 motives | 2 techniques |
| Threat Actors | Type | Location |
|---|---|---|
| 0 actors | Available to members | Available to members |
Description
On March 28, 2023, the official website of the Supreme Court of Pakistan was taken over by attackers of unknown origin in the morning. The intruders replaced the site’s content with a message stating “our spring sale has started”. Screenshots of the altered page quickly circulated on social media platforms. Government‑employed IT specialists intervened and restored the website after a short period of disruption. Shortly after the site was brought back online, a COVID‑19‑related advisory was posted, advising that only concerned individuals should visit the court despite the low number of active cases in Islamabad. The article notes that it remains unclear whether any data was exfiltrated or exactly how long the outage lasted before recovery.
The incident is described as not being the first cyber attack on a prominent Pakistani online presence earlier that month. The online retailer Naheed experienced a breach in which hackers claimed to have obtained up to 23,000 user records and 108 order details containing personal and payment information. Naheed later explained that the breach stemmed from a phishing‑compromised developer laptop, which gave the attackers access to non‑critical test data on one of their staging servers. The article provides no further details about the Supreme Court attack’s origin, motive, or any potential data loss.