Blocking IP addresses is not a very efficient way of keeping hackers out

Apr 23, 2014 11:14 GMT  ·  By

Over the past days, hacktivists from Pakistan have targeted a number of websites associated with India’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). As a result, some of the BJP’s sites can no longer be accessed from Pakistan.

According to E Hacking News, when users in Pakistan try to access the site of the BJP, they’re presented with the following message: “The owner of this website (bjp.org) has banned your IP address on the country or region you are accessing it from.”

The site of Narendra Modi, the party’s candidate for prime minister, is also inaccessible from Pakistan.

The head of BJP’s IT department has told Newsweek Pakistan that the websites were blocked automatically by India’s self-defense mechanisms due to the large number of hacking attempts originating in Pakistan.

The party’s representatives have asked CERT-In to have them unblocked, but the process could take a few days.

At least three BJP websites have been breached and defaced this month. The list includes bjpjunagadh.org, lkadvani.in and biharbjp.org.

In reality, blocking the Internet users of a certain country from accessing a website is not a very effective way of keeping hackers out. That’s because hackers use VPNs and other methods to hide their identity, so it’s unlikely that they’ll breach a website from their own IPs.

A much better way to protect websites is to patch them up properly, not by trying to block out certain users.