Is China diverting its COVID-19 mess with Tawang clash and cyber attack on India

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, Dec 15: Official sources on Wednesday said that the cyberattacks on the servers of AIIMS originated from locations in China and Hong Kong.

The cyber attack on the servers of AIIMS took place weeks before China made an attempt to alter the status quo on the Tawang Sector in Arunachal Pradesh. Not just AIIMS, the ICMR’s website too faced around 6,000 attempts of cyber attacks on November 30 from an IP address in Hong Kong.

There has been a sustained attempt to attack the healthcare system in India and this year alone there have been nearly 1.9 million cuber attacks. These are originated mainly from China, Pakistan and Vietnam.

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If one looks at the data where cyberattacks are concerned from 2017, there has been a huge increase in the number of such incidents. In 2017 between April and December there were 41,378 cybersecurity incidents. For the year 2018, it was 2,08,456 while in 2019, it stood at 3,94,499.

Since the year 2020 thee has been a surge according to data provided by the government in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday. The year 2020 recorded 11,58,208 attacks on the cyberspace while the following year it was at 14,02,809. In 2022, until November the number of cyberattacks stands at 12,67,564.

Now going by what many are saying on the Chinese social media, it appears as though there has been an attempt made to divert attention from what is going on in China.
The rise in the number of cyberattacks and now the Tawang Sector incident comes at a time when China is grappling with the huge problem of COVID-19. People have come out on the streets to protest against the curbs imposed by the Xi Jinping government. China has been reporting a large number of cases and is also grappling with acute shortage of medicines in stores. Moreover a large number of doctors and nurses are also contracting the virus. Acceding to medical staff and social media posts, they have however been told to continue working.

Delhi AIIMS cyber attack was handiwork of Chinese hackers: Data is now safe

The Chinese social media too is filled with comments linking China’s COVID-19 problem to its attempt to target India. Some even called it a diversionary tactic.

The National Health Commission, which is China’s top health body said that the true scale the COVID-19 infections in the country is now impossible to track.