In retaliation for the hacking of several Indian government websites by Brazilian hackers on April 6, a group of unknown Indian hackers has defaced 37 Brazilian websites, virtually declaring a cyberwar.

The Indian hackers have not only blocked the websites but also left a provocative message claiming that the server of all the hacked websites was “now under the control of the Indian hackers.”

The message, read on the home page of all the hacked websites, states that the reason for intruding into the Brazilian websites was to retaliate “some lamers of Brazil hacking into Indian cyberspace.”

The message further stated: “Big mistake what you have done. Now, we stand for our motherland. Want a cyber war? Ask for it you will be served.” It may be recalled that Brazilian hackers, identified as “hi tech Brazil hack team,” defaced Indian websites in a similar manner by pulling down the servers and taking control over them. The Brazilian hackers had replaced the homepages with a video which appeared to be shot with a ‘vine’ application.

The video shows a man dressed as joker standing on the roadside, while a vehicle through which the video is shot, cruises past him and redirecting to other websites to gain Internet traffic.

Though the damage caused by the Brazilian hackers to the Indian websites is yet to be ascertained, the Bangalore-based Cyber Security Response Team (CSRT) claimed that huge data was suspected to have been damaged and stolen. CSRT member Mirza Faizan told The Hindu that there were many other Indian websites, which were regularly hacked, just to steal confidential data from the government, only to be sold to other countries for a huge consideration.

As per the CSRT statistics, more than 16,000 Indian websites were hacked every year. While the number of sites hacked in 2009 stood at 9,180, it grew to 14,232 in 2011, Mr. Faizan said.

A total of 294 websites belonging to various ministries and government departments were hacked in the January-October 2012 period and 2,000 government websites were hacked so far this year (till March 2013), he said.