Will seek CBI probe into Mumbai power outage: BJP after Raut's 'cyber attack' remark

Mumbai, Mar 03: BJP leader Sudhir Mungantiwar on Wednesday said he will write a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, seeking a CBI probe into the alleged "cyber attack from China" that caused massive power outage in Mumbai last year, as claimed by Maharashtra minister Nitin Raut.

Mungantiwar made the remarks in the state Legislative Assembly.

Energy Minister Raut had on Monday said thatpower outage in the city on October 12 last year was a "cyber-attack and a sabotage".

He, however, had not mentioned the name of China or any other country that day.

"I am going to write a letter to the prime minister. Nitin Raut saheb has said that there was Chinese (cyber) attack (that led to power outage in Mumbai). Hence, the entire matter should be handed over to the CBI," Mungantiwar said.

Meanwhile, citing the Maharashtra Cyber Cell''s probe report into the episode, Raut said in the lower house of the state legislature on Wednesday that an attempt was made to disrupt the power supply in Mumbai by attacking the computer system of the state electricity company.

He said the cyber cell report concluded that, "...it was observed that 14 trojan horses entered the computer system of the (state''s) electricity company and an attempt was made to disrupt power supply."

"Some of these trojan horses had carried out big cyber-attacks in the world earlier...it was observed that the trojan horses easily entered the firewall of the IT and OT server required for supplying electricity," he added.

It was observed that some "suspicious dangerous" codes and software programmes "which could hurt the cyber security ecosystem" easily entered the firewall of the server at the Kalwa State Load Dispatch Centre," the minister said, citing the cyber cell report.

"It was observed that repeated attempts were made from foreign suspicious and blacklisted internet protocol addresses to log into the SLDC''s cyber server and to hack the system," he said.

The minister also said that the reportmentions that it was noted that attempts were made to transfer 8GB data from "suspicious internet protocol addresses" to the SLDC''s cyber server.

"The cyber cell has given all this information. Our department is studying it. I assure to take steps to ensure there is no recurrence of the incident and that Mumbai will get quality and 24X7 supply," he added.