Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) chief and scientific adviser to defence minister Dr V.K. Saraswat revealed on Saturday that computer servers of government departments were attacked nearly 200 times during 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi.
“There have been many cases of hackers from foreign countries and ethical hackers intruding into our systems in the past,” said Dr Saraswat after being conferred an honorary doctorate by Hindustan University in the city.
“Hackers had tried to destabilise the Commonwealth Games by hacking into servers of government departments. But, with a strong team of computer experts we were able to counter these attacks,” he said.
Pointing out that the country needed more mathematicians, physicists and computer experts to counter cyber-attacks, Dr Saraswat said DRDO had planned to develop a strong encryption group to develop encryption techniques to save the servers from cyber-attacks.
The organisation also plans to design and build servers, routers and operating systems making the country self-reliant in the IT field. He said that DRDO would set up a training institute near Delhi to train the armed forces in mitigating chemical, radiological, biological and nuclear radiation.