The Centre on Monday denied any data breach in the attempt made by Chinese hackers to target the country's power grid system.

In a statement, the power ministry said, "An email was received from CERT-In on 19th November, 2020 on the threat of malware called Shadow Pad at some control centres of POSOCO. Accordingly, action has been taken to address these threats."

"NCIIPC informed through mail on Feb 12 about threat by Red Echo through malware Shadow Pad that 'Chinese state-sponsored threat Actor group known as Red Echo is targeting Indian Power sector's Regional Load Dispatch Centres along with State Load Dispatch Centres'," the ministry added.

It also said that the government took prompt action by blocking all IP addresses and domains listed in NCIIPC mail. All systems in control centres were scanned and cleaned by antivirus, the ministry further said.

(With inputs from agencies)