Websites of the Cyberabad and Rachakonda Police Commissionerates were taken offline after visitors were redirected to gaming and betting sites. The issue began about a week ago and was first noticed by the police IT cell. Users trying to access information faced repeated errors like “site can’t be reached” and “destination not reachable.” The IT cell contacted a Delhi-based cyber security firm working with the National Informatics Centre (NIC), which hosts the police websites, to find and fix the problem. Cyberabad Cyber Crimes DCP YVS Sudheendra said, “NIC is currently working on the backend and the sites should be back within a day or two.” Cyberabad Police Commissioner Avinash Mohanty added that NIC tested the pages and expected the sites to go live by Thursday evening. He also confirmed there was no evidence of data compromise so far. This cyber attack comes soon after the Telangana High Court’s website was hacked. On November 11, court staff found that PDF documents on the portal were changed and redirecting users to a gaming site called BDG SLOT. The court’s IT Registrar, T. Venkateswara Rao, alerted police and filed a complaint with Hyderabad Cyber Crime Police. The High Court website is also hosted by NIC and contains important judicial information. Earlier, in June 2024, Telangana Police websites were shut down after multiple data breaches. Security teams then worked on fixing vulnerabilities before restoring services. Rachakonda Cyber Crimes DCP B. Anuradha said the police deliberately took down the sites to upgrade them on NIC’s advice. She added, “the process might take around 10 days.”