April 15, 2020, Kathmandu
SATAN, an anonymous Nepalese hacker, is now revealing the bugs of websites publicly through his Twitter handle @satan_cyber_god. Recently, he tweeted, saying he was in the system of Mercantile. Soon after it, he uploaded the image claiming the database.
Mercantile responded to the incident on 14 April. Releasing a statement, Mercantile said that it has taken the incident seriously and is improving its security. The company also informed that new .np domain registration is temporarily stopped until significant developments are made on the case.
It made clear that the majority of the data in its server is public information available through ‘whois’ and other personal information is uncompromised.
The statement also requested people who are trying to breach the security of the company to destroy the data without making it public. Mercantile Communication is managing .np domain registration for 25 years without any cost. The company has also requested the users to keep patience.
Here’s what the statement says,
NOTICE
Date: 14 April 2020
This notice is to confirm that on 13 April at 10:37 PM, we became aware of a security breach to Mercantile’s .np domain registration server. The majority of the data in this server is public information available via the “whois” query. Our preliminary investigations suggest that all other .np domain services remain uncompromised and, as such, continue to operate without any further breaches.
We are taking this incident seriously. Please note that this is a developing situation, and we will notify customers if there are any significant developments. We will be implementing additional security measures designed to improve the overall security of the server. Until such time, new domain registrations will be temporarily halted.
We urge those who are attempting to breach the protection of the server not to publicize any information and destroy any data so obtained.
Mercantile has been managing the .np domain for 25 years. We are currently providing this facility to over 83,000 individuals and businesses completely free of charge with the mission to facilitate and support the digitization of Nepal.
We understand that a situation like this, at a time when our country is already dealing with a pandemic and lockdown, creates additional stress and anxiety. We ask for your tolerance and understanding as we do our level best to respond to this incident and get our domain registration service up and running again.
MERCANTILE COMMUNICATION PVT. LTD.
