Hacktivist Indonesia also targeted US, Israel, Sweden apart from India over incidents that hurt religious sentiments

On Thursday, the Indian government issued a cyber security alert over the group's announcement that it will target 12,000 government websites, and urged government officials to take preventive measures.

The cyber attack group Hacktivist Indonesia which has issued a "red notice" targeting 12,000 government websites, has also, in the past, targeted other countries such as the United States of America (US), Sweden and Israel over incidents which have hurt religious sentiments, or targeted a particular community.

Moneycontrol analysed the updates in the Telegram channel where Hacktivist Indonesia regularly posts their claimed exploits, and found that in the past they have allegedly leaked data of Swedish social media users, health and social media data from Israel, and has claimed to have leaked data from a police department in New York, US.

While the claimed cyber attacks against Sweden were in response to a Quran burning incident that took place in the country in January, the attacks on Israel were in response to the boiling situation in the country regarding Palestine, the posts made by Hacktivist Indonesia on Telegram, showed.

"We address this response to you that the Al-Quran is not to be played with," the group said in a video showing pages of social media related to Swedish citizens, and which seem to have come into their possession. "You can count yourself how many million of your data are damaged (sic)," the post added.

The claimed attack against a police department in the US was in response to a row over a painting depicting Prophet Muhammad at a university in the country.

All their posts on Telegram also make references to other hacktivist groups such as Anonymous Sudan, which also has been in the news for targeting hospitals in Hyderabad, Dragon Force Malaysia, which last year targeted several Indian websites over comments made against Prophet Muhammad, and so on.

On Thursday, the Indian government issued a cyber security alert over the group's announcement that it will target 12,000 government websites, and urged government officials to take preventive measures.

Moneycontrol accessed the "red notice" document that the group shared and found the names of thousands of government websites, including that of Aadhaar, departments of police, space, and Income Tax, consulate websites, and so on.

This is not the first time that the group has claimed to have targeted India.

Moneycontrol also found posts from December where they shared documents listing several phone numbers from the country. The 82.3 MB file shared on Telegram contained thousands of phone numbers.

They also claimed to have hacked a social media website and shared data pertaining to Indian users on Telegram.

This publication has reached out to the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre, the body under the Ministry of Home Affairs, which had issued the alert on Thursday. This post will be updated when a response is received.