Mumbai blackout: Nitin Raut insists on Chinese cyber attack angle; ‘human error’, says Union minister

Maharashtra Power Minister Nitin Raut on Wednesday said that there was enough evidence suggesting that last year’s power outage in Mumbai could have been triggered by a cyber attack. Raut tabled the report of Maharashtra Cyber Cell on the October 12, 2020 Mumbai power outage in the Assembly today.

Talking to the media later, Nitin Raut said that the report shows intrusion of malware from China, UK and other places into the powergrid system. He said that crucial data was also stolen in the process.  

“SCADA unit that balances load dispatch as per supply and demand, shows the entry of 8 Trojan horse malware from China, UK & other places by breaking firewall. 8 GB of data was stolen,” Nitin Raut said.

ALSO READ: Foreign media report linking Mumbai power outage to Chinese cyber attack true: Maharashtra Minister

The power minister announced that state power department has now banned the use of Chinese equipment.  

“Our department won’t use any Chinese equipment from now on,” Nitin Raut said.

Nitin Raut’s statement is in complete contrast to Union Power Minister RK Singh’s reaction over the incident. Singh had said that last year’s outage in Mumbai was due to a ‘human error’, adding that there was no evidence to suggest that it was triggered by a cyberattack by China. 

“Two teams investigated the power outage and reported that the outage was caused by human error and not due to cyberattack. One of the teams submitted that cyberattacks did happen but they were not linked to the Mumbai grid failure,” news agency ANI quoted RK Singh, as saying. 

“Some people say that the group behind the attacks is Chinese but we don’t have evidence. China will definitely deny it,” he added.

Latest India News