’Ransomware’ attack on websites of A.P., TS power utilities

A day ahead of the safety week observed by power utilities from May 1 to 7, the websites of two power distribution companies each of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh were hacked which resulted in their computer-based applications coming to a standstill for over three days.

It was on Tuesday evening that the websites were hacked of southern and northern power distribution companies of Telangana at Hyderabad and Warangal respectively and southern and eastern power distribution companies of Andhra Pradesh at Tirupati and Visakhapatnam respectively.

All of them were maintained by Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) in Hyderabad, sources said. The chairman and managing director of transmission and generation corporations of Telangana D. Prabhakar Rao said the entire computerised data of power utilities was safe as it had a backup mechanism. Except payments made by the corporations by ATM mode, their routine functions remained unaffected.