FBR website partially restored after cyber attack, Taxpayers’ data is secure

The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) website has been under cyber attack however, the taxpayers’ data is secure and was not compromised!

The front-end functionalities on the website have been affected, which would be restored in the next 24-48 hours, as per the source.

Till Sunday night, the FBR’s official website continued to remain inaccessible including the customs computerized clearance system. However, it is now accessible and a number of functions working by the time of filing this story.

Some of the anomalies have already been fixed and the remaining would be corrected in the next one or two days. “The data is safe and things would be normal in 1-2 days,” sources added.

The FBR team is ensuring the restoration of services as soon as possible.

As per a clarification issued by the FBR regarding a disturbance in Customs Operations, it said it was due to the up-gradation of the FBR Data Center.

Till Sunday late night, the FBR’s all websites including an official website, return-filing “IRIS”, FBR-Taxray, E-payment, sales tax refund status, Tax-Assan, e-registration, and customs clearance WEBOC were non-functional.

As being reported, FBR Chairman Asim Ahmad on Sunday, held an emergency meeting with the IT team at the FBR Headquarters to deal with the issue of the cyber attack on the FBR official website which has been closed since Saturday (August 15).

According to the news source, the FBR has not approached the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) or the National Information Technology Board, but the most appropriate department to deal with cybersecurity is the National Center for Cyber Security.

“The FBR’s website is temporarily down for scheduled maintenance,” read the website when it was accessed a day ago.

An FBR official said, “It is cyber terrorism on our Independence Day, adding that the attackers have not yet been identified. The cyberattack has affected the virtual environment of the data centre.

“Since the virtual environment has been damaged, we are trying to create a new virtual environment that may take up to two days,” said another official from the information technology department.

“We are trying to restore the websites by tomorrow afternoon and the essential data centre by tomorrow evening, as we do not want to cause more damage by shifting data in haste.”