New Delhi: About 25 websites of Central Ministries and state governments were hacked in the first five months of 2019, Parliament was informed on Thursday. "As per the information reported to and tracked by Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), a total number of 199, 172, 110 and 25 websites of Central Ministries/Departments and State Governments were hacked during the year 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019 (till May), respectively," Ravi Shankar Prasad, Electronics and IT Minister stated in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha.

He noted that with the proliferation of related services and information technology, cyber attacks have become a global phenomenon. "Cyberspace is virtual and borderless, thus cyber attacks can come from anywhere, anytime and by anyone...Government has taken several steps to prevent cyber security incidents and enhancing cyber security in the country," he said. The government has established National Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Centre (NCIIPC) to protect critical information infrastructure in the country, as per the provisions of section 70A of the Information Technology (IT) Act, 2000, he said.