The Telangana High Court’s official website was hacked this week, with several judicial PDF documents tampered with and redirected to an online gaming platform in what officials described as a serious breach of digital infrastructure at one of the state’s most critical institutions.
The cyberattack, discovered on the morning of November 11, disabled the display of multiple PDF files — including cause lists, case status documents and administrative notices — all of which began redirecting users to a gaming website called BDG SLOT. Court officials said the intrusion compromised both accessibility and the court’s public-facing credibility.
A Breach That Hit the Heart of Judicial Access
In a formal complaint filed with the Director-General of Police, High Court Registrar (IT) T. Venkateswara Rao said the website, hosted by the National Informatics Centre (NIC) at BRKR Bhavan, functioned as a central repository for judicial information. The tampering of its documents, he wrote, amounted to “hacking and commission of a cyber crime affecting the reputation of the High Court.”
The attack did not appear to involve theft of data or defacement of the homepage, but the redirection of files indicated direct interference with the document directory or embedded links, likely through unauthorized access.
NIC officials have begun an internal inquiry, though their report has not yet been made public.
Police Register FIR Under IT Act and Gaming Act
Following the complaint, the Hyderabad Cybercrime Police registered a case under several provisions of the Information Technology Act — including Sections 66, 43, 66(C), and 66(D) — as well as Section 337 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and Section 3(1)(i) of the Telangana Gaming Act.
Investigators said the redirection to a gaming site suggested motives ranging from affiliate-driven revenue generation to broader attempts to test vulnerabilities within government systems.
“This is a serious intrusion because it targets a judicial institution and interferes with public access to official documents,” a senior cybercrime officer said.
Rising Attacks on Public Digital Infrastructure
The hacking comes at a time when government digital portals across India — from municipal bodies to universities to health databases — have faced repeated attempts at tampering, credential theft and redirection.
Cybersecurity experts say the attack highlights a familiar weakness: outdated website frameworks and insufficient server-level monitoring. “Judicial institutions are attractive targets because of the trust they command,” one analyst noted.
For now, the High Court’s hyperlinks have been restored, but the investigation continues to determine how deep the breach went, whether internal credentials were compromised, and whether the same hackers attempted similar intrusions elsewhere.
