Chinese cutting power across North India

In recent months, a threat intelligence firm has claimed that China-backed state hackers have been attacking the Indian power grid system near Ladakh.
On Wednesday, a report by Recorded Future claimed that the cyber attacks are part of China’s espionage battle against India, reports Bloomberg.

The report further claimed that at least seven “load dispatch” centres near the India-China border in Ladakh have been under Chinese surveillance.

“In recent months, we observed likely network intrusions targeting at least seven Indian State Load Despatch Centres (SLDCs) responsible for carrying out real-time operations for grid control and electricity dispatch within these respective states. Notably, this targeting has been geographically concentrated, with the identified SLDCs located in North India, in proximity to the disputed India-China border in Ladakh,” Recorded Future said in its report.

“The attacks took place between August last year and March”, sources said. The investigation found the data passing in and out of Indian Load Despatch Centres to the Chinese state-sponsored command and control servers spread worldwide.

“In addition to the targeting of power grid assets, we also identified the compromise of a national emergency response system and the Indian subsidiary of a multinational logistics company by the same threat activity group,” Recorded Future said.

Shadowpad, one of the backdoor tools used in operation, is known to have originated from the attack group TAG-38 having close associations with China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA). The attack group TAG-38,
ShadowPad is one of the largest known supply-chain attacks that plant backdoors within the networks. This backdoor allows attackers to download further malicious modules or steal data when activated.

This is not the first time The Chinese have attacked Indian power grids. A similar attack happened in Mumbai in October 2020 by the RedEcho hacker group allegedly sponsored by the Chinese government.

“We know that China is capable of launching cyberattacks on us and that it can disrupt a large amount of our systems. What we are trying to do is to create a system which would ensure cyber defence,” said former Chief of Defence Staff, late Bipin Rawat.

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