Official representative of Tech Mahindra, Sh. Mahendra Laxminarayan Lathi lodged a complaint at the Nigdi Police Station on 9th of March, 2021 reporting a ransomware cyberattack on Pimpri-Chinchwad Smart City Project on 26th February 2020. A loss of 5 crores has been reported by the IT firm responsible for managing the plan and servers of the PCMC. A ransom was demanded to be paid in form of Bitcoins.
The project is one of a kind where problems pertaining to sewerage, traffic, CCTV surveillance, data center, network, smart water, disaster management are dealt with with the use of technological solutions. Tech Mahindra is responsible for the servers and planning of the project.
The attack was reported to the Tech Mahindra officials on the 26th of February and immediately the cybersecurity officials took over. However, a police complaint was lodged on the 9th of March.
With the incident being reported, a series of political statements were made by the parties. Although Tech Mahindra has reported a loss of 5 crores the Municipal Commissioner Rajesh Patil denied paying anything to the company. PCMC official pressed their confidence in the Tech Mahindra’s efficiency yet expressed concern about the police complaint. On the other hand, Tech Mahindra officials have made it clear that they have not demanded any compensation from the city council nor they intend to do so.
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A detailed analysis of the incident by the cybersecurity experts from the Tech Company revealed that 25 servers were affected by the cyber attack. A need for a new security system with rebuilding new servers was also expressed.
Politicians from Shiv Sena and BJP raised questions about the negligence of the company over cybersecurity. Questions were raised over the contradictory facts in the FIR as well.
