Lucknow . Once again cyber criminals have knocked in Lucknow. This time he hacked the computer network of Balrampur Hospital and issued them to different people by making dozens of fake birth-death certificates in a fake manner in the last one month. The hospital administration has registered an FIR under the IT Act 2008 against unknown hackers at Wazirganj police station on Saturday.
Interestingly, the hospital does not have a gynecology and obstetrics department and hence, not a single birth took place here.
However, the hospital authorities found that at least 41 birth certificates have been issued.
Officials believe that this could be just one end of the hoax. An audit is being conducted to find out whether more fake certificates related to birth or death and any other medical documents were also made through the hospital system.
Police suspect that this could be part of a pan-India racket that is hacking hospital portals across the country and creating fake death and birth certificates online and selling them to people.
The officer in charge of issuing the certificate, Dr. M.P. Singh said, the hospital is connected to a centralized network of portals operated by the Citizen Registration System (CRS), which works under the Chief Registrar (Births and Deaths), New Delhi and maintains population records.
Dr Singh said, we have a different user ID and password. In the past one month, we experienced glitches in accessing the system for issuance of death certificates. It denied us access from time to time. When we lodged a complaint with the Chief Registrar, it told us that some ‘suspicious activities’ were being carried out using the user ID and password of the hospital.
He said, on August 16, when the portal denied us access again, we contacted the computer experts of the Directorate of Health and conducted an investigation, which revealed that the system had been hacked.
An audit found that 41 fake birth certificates were generated over a period of one month through user IDs of the hospital, despite the fact that the hospital does not take delivery cases.
Chief Medical Officer Dr Manoj Aggarwal said, we have asked other hospitals to report if they are also facing similar problems.
At present, nine district government hospitals and three government-aided medical educational institutions in the city are connected to the CRS portal and are allowed to issue birth or death certificates.
At the same time, Assistant Commissioner of Police Chowk I.P. “We have registered a case,” Singh said. Investigations are underway to find out the perpetrators of the hacking.
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