A group of pro-India hackers have launched cyber attacks on Qatar in response to the death sentence of eight former Indian Navy officers by a Qatari court.
Taking to X, Fusion Intelligence Center said that Indian Cyber Force has claimed responsibility for shutting down multiple Qatari websites following threats of cyber attacks.
The group has claimed responsibility of executing unauthorized server access, leaked data, defaced websites, launched DDoS attacks, breached the country’s CCTV camera web servers and exposed account information related to the country.
In a series of posts on X, the hackers back up their claim with a screenshot showing the portal’s message saying it is “temporarily down”.
The screenshot displayed the message, “This site can’t be reached. The web page at https://ecommerce.gov.qa/ might be temporarily down, or it may have moved permanently to a news web address. Qatar Ecommerce Government Website has been taken down.”
The group reported a two-hour cyber attack on the Qatar government portal and shared a check hosting link.
Following an attack on the country’s government e-commerce site, Indian Cyber Force has escalated attacks on Qatari online shopping platform oasis.qa and Al Anees’ services.
On October 26, the Court of First Instance of Qatar passed a verdict of the death penalty for the eight former naval officers who were detained in Doha.
The eight officers are— Captain Navtej Singh Gill, Captain Saurabh Vasisht, Commander Purenendu Tiwari, Captain Birendra Kumar Verma, Commander Sugunakar Pakala, Commander Sanjeev Gupta, Commander Amit Nagpal and Sailor Rajesh.
The former Navy men were first picked up by the state security bureau, the Qatari intelligence agency on August 30, 2022.
Though the charges against the men are not public, it is learnt that each have been kept under solitary confinement indicating they could have been arrested for security-related issues.
