Dubai: The official website of the Consulate General of India Dubai has apparently been hacked with its URL www.cgidubai.com leading instead to strange advertisements.
Though the consulate officials insist the popular site has not been hacked “but is only facing a technical snag”, word has spread across social media and among the Indian community in Dubai saying otherwise.
“The website is not hacked, we are facing some technical issues and it will be sorted out by Tuesday morning,” said Ashok Babu, Information and Commerce Consul at Consulate General of India.
However, technical experts claim that if the website had not been hacked, it wouldn’t redirect to other sites or advertisements as in the case of the CGI website.
“If it was a technical issue, people would just face access issues, the it wouldn’t redirect. It clearly looks like it has been hacked,” said an IT expert on condition of anonymity.
A number of Indian residents said they had been trying to access the website but had failed and even phone calls were not answered with the lines continuously busy.
“The phone lines have been jammed since the morning I tried calling several times to find out what’s the matter but couldn’t succeed, then I got to know through Twitter that it had been hacked,” said a concerned resident.
According to Babu, the site hasn’t been accessible since Sunday morning, but people can continue to access information related to passport and visa services on the website of CGI’s outsourced agent BLS International www.blsindiavisa-uae.com.
