The High Court of Karnataka has suspended the facilities of hearing through videoconference and online streaming of court proceedings for cybersecurity reasons after unknown miscreants logged into its Zoom meeting platform and played pornographic video contents on December 4 afternoon during the proceedings in about six court halls.
The miscreants again attempted to play the videos by logging in on Tuesday morning, due to which the court’s administration decided to shut down the videoconference and live streaming system for the time being.
According to sources, one of the servers though which the miscreants logged into the court’s videoconference system was located abroad.
“An unfortunate situation has arisen... We are stopping the live streaming, videoconferencing facilities... some mischief is being played and technology is being misused...” Chief Justice Prasanna B. Varale informed the advocates and litigants present in Court Hall-1 on Tuesday when a Division Bench, also comprising Justice Krishna S. Dixit, assembled for the proceedings.
The Chief Justice requested the advocates, including the State Advocate General, and the litigants to cooperate with the court’s administration and not to rush to the registry complaining about non-availability of videoconference facility.
“The Karnataka High Court is always in favour of technology being used for the better services for the public as well as for advocates. But for the situation which is unprecedented, we have to take this decision,” the Chief Justice said.
Second attempt
Though limited access to the lawyers with proper identity was allowed through videoconference on Tuesday, it was abruptly shutdown as miscreants again played obscene contents when the proceedings commenced.
Even the proceedings of the Chief Justice’s court was provided through videoconference with limited access to the advocates. However, it was stopped after the breached was noticed again.
The court on Tuesday night issued a statement that restoration of videoconference facility with new safeguards would be notified while requesting the advocates, litigants/party-in-persons to access the proceedings through physical mode till restoration of videoconference facility.
The court’s administrative wing filed a Fist Information Report (FIR) with the CEN (Cyber, Economics and Narcotics) police station, Bengaluru, on Monday providing details of the breach.
Based on the complaint filed by N. Suresh, an official attached to the office of Registrar (Computers), High Court, the police registered the FIR against an unknown individual under Section 67 (publishing or transmitting obscene material in electronic form) and 67(a) (Punishment for publishing or transmitting of material containing sexually explicit act) of Information Technology Act, 2000 on Monday.
According to an advocate, obscene contents were visible on two computer display screens put up in one of the court halls and the advocates and judge had thought that a mischief-monger had done this act. However, they came to know that the videos were played in multiple court halls leading to a suspicion that it was a targeted attempt by individuals or groups indulging in cybersecurity breach.
The Karnataka High Court, which was among the first few in the county to provide permanent videoconference facility for hearing of cases since March 2020 in the backdrop of COVID-19 pandemic, stopped the facility for the first time since the system was introduced.
“We have accessed the IP addresses of the systems from where the attacks originated. While one is a local server, another is based out of Bangladesh,” a senior police official said.
The breach comes days after hoax bomb threat emails were sent to nearly 70 schools in and around Bengaluru, creating havoc as thousands of children had to return home mid-day.
