Cyber Incident Victim: Rawalpindi Police
Date:
May 2014
Location:
Pakistan
Summary
The official website of the Rawalpindi police was compromised by hackers expressing support for the Taliban, resulting in defacement featuring pro-Taliban messages and imagery of Al-Qaeda and Taliban figures. The victim confirmed no sensitive data was breached, as the site primarily served public awareness purposes and lacked classified information, though it was temporarily taken offline for restoration. Concurrently, Pakistani hacktivists retaliated against perceived Indian cyber aggression by breaching an Indian telecom company's regional intranet portal, issuing a warning about escalating cyber vulnerabilities and threatening further attacks.
| CIA Posture | Motives | Tactics, Techniques & Procedures |
|---|---|---|
| Available to members | 2 motives | 1 technique |
| Threat Actor | Type | Location |
|---|---|---|
| 1 actor | Available to members | Available to members |
Description
On May 16, 2014, the official website of the Rawalpindi Police in Pakistan (rawalpindipolice.gov.pk) was compromised by hackers expressing support for the Taliban. The attackers defaced the site with a message stating "Hacked by Anti Mortadin!@. This site was hacked a victory for the Taliban" accompanied by images of Al-Qaeda members and Taliban leadership. The intrusion occurred on Thursday according to contemporaneous reports, though the exact time of initial compromise wasn't specified. Rawalpindi Police representatives confirmed to AFP that the breach didn't expose sensitive information, clarifying the website primarily served public awareness campaigns and contained no classified data. Following the defacement, authorities took the website offline for maintenance, with the domain remaining inaccessible at the time of the article's publication. No technical details regarding the attack vector or duration of unauthorized access were disclosed by officials.
Concurrently, Pakistani-affiliated hackers targeted Indian telecommunications provider BSNL, breaching the intranet portal for its Haryana state operations. The attackers claimed this intrusion represented retaliation for prior cyberattacks against Pakistani websites, explicitly warning "Payback for hacking Pak sites! And don't mess with Pakistan else you will lose both your name and this game." Their defacement message asserted Pakistan's cyber superiority, threatening disproportionate retaliation against future incidents. A mirror of the Rawalpindi Police defacement appeared on Aljyyosh.org, though the relationship between this domain and the attackers remained unspecified. The article noted BSNL domains were frequent targets of Pakistani hacktivists, establishing historical context for the reciprocal attacks. Both incidents demonstrated the ongoing use of website defacements as symbolic acts within regional cyber conflicts during this period.