The e-Governance Department has shut several government websites that had been given direct IP access or has temporarily closed some access to certain sites till the “patching” is completed. Microsoft, on Friday, released patches to close vulnerabilities that allowed the bug to access networks.
After the Microsoft notification, some of the ports in the data centre that were believed to be vulnerable have been addressed.
The patching work to set right the ports that were vulnerable commenced on Friday evening itself. The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team in the Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology had also issued “critical alert” to respective State governments by providing guidelines to be followed to prevent the ransomware attack.
According to an official in e-Governance Department, officials in the data centre worked on Saturday and Sunday too to fix the patches and protect the ports from any possible attack from ransomware.
Meanwhile, individual departments that operate their own systems have been asked to update anti-virus software and close vulnerabilities, if any.
By Baishakhi Dutta
