Maharashtra Government Confirms Chinese hand behind 2020 Mumbai Power Outrage

A US company ‘Recorded Future’ has issued a report stating that the Mumbai power outage in October 2020 was caused due to a cyber attack by a Chinese government-linked company. The report has identified that China-linked RedEcho was allegedly behind the attack, amid Indo-China border tensions. The Maharashtra Cyber Team has submitted a report to Home Minister Anil Deshmukh about the ‘attack on the state’s power grid’.

Recorded Future identified that ten distinct Indian power sector organisations, including four of the five Regional Load Despatch Centres, two Indian seaports were targets in a concerted campaign by the Chinese group. RedEcho reportedly has strong infrastructure and victimology overlaps with Chinese groups APT41/Barium and Tonto Team, while ShadowPad is used by at least five distinct Chinese groups.

“Maharashtra Cyber Cell has submitted a preliminary report on this. The report findings state there is evidence that suggests there might have been a cyber-sabotage attempt. The report handed over to minister Nitin Raut,” Maharashtra HM Anil Deshmukh said. “When the power went out in Mumbai, I had said that there was something wrong & had constituted 3 committees to probe. I feel media reports that have surfaced are true. He added.