• Chinese Hackers Target Indian Government

    Chinese Hackers Target Indian Government

    Techtree News Staff, Apr 07, 2010 1700 hrs IST

    Cyber attack threats loom large

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Cyber security researchers and analysts have uncovered the existence of a spy network based in China that was used to steal sensitive, classified government documents from India - as well data from the Dalai Lama's office and the United Nations.

The "Shadow Network", as this network is now known, has been traced to two people living in Chengdu, China.
China is largely believed to possess a Cyber Warfare Doctrine that is designed to achieve global "electronic dominance" by 2050. With a yearly budget of $55 million allotted for it and over 10,000 hackers working in tandem, China is second only to U.S. when it comes to cyber snooping prowess.

As more details emerge about the intentions of these hackers, it is clear that they had targeted the upcoming Commonwealth games in India. The idea was to make Commonwealth games an utter failure later this year. The plans included studying the network architecture of the entire Commonwealth games IT infrastructure. This includes ticket sales, online registration servers all of which would crash at the time of the inaugural ceremony. The hackers had also looked into tender documents for the Commonwealth games network infrastructure. Intelligence agencies feel this could be for studying vulnerabilities in the system for possible attacks.

This is obviously not the first time India was under from these Chinese hackers. In 2008 and 2009 too, there were many incidences of small attacks on computers of the Indian Ministry of External Affairs. As many as 450 computers belonging to the India Government - including that of the then National Security Adviser (NSA) M.K. Narayanan and Deputy NSA Shekhar Dutt and the chiefs of the navy, army and air force besides officials in the defense intelligence agencies were infected. Finally, the infected computers were taken offline and replaced.

As to how the latest attacks happened, the modus operandi was simple. Individuals in the ministries were sent emails from a genuine looking nic.in mail address. The email had a PDF attachment that was infected. Accounts on Twitter, Yahoo Mail, Google Groups, Blogspot and other social-networking sites were used to update compromised computers and to host malware, according to the report.

Isn't it high time that we pull up our socks and deal with this grave security threat?



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Discussion Board
(29) Comments
Arun
,Madurai, on Apr 12, 2010 11:50 AM
Indians are good planners, but poor executors. These hacking instance shows that India had to work more to protect our privacy. Take care INDIA.
deepak
,guahati, on Apr 10, 2010 06:06 PM
i will hack the chinese
GOSHER DINESH
,MUNDRA, on Apr 09, 2010 03:48 PM
THANKS FOR CHINES. WHAT INDIAN SCIENTIST ARE DOING ?
George
,London, on Apr 09, 2010 02:43 PM
Why do the Indian media endlessly moaing about Chinese hackers? Why the hell don't Indians hack back instead of doing their routine IT? Hacking is a special skill which the Indian ITwallas don't have. Time for them to pick up and get at the Chinese likewise.
dhanapal
,Bangalore, india, on Apr 09, 2010 02:40 PM
stone age wars were between men and animals......later between men and men...development of weapons...everywhere spying was in existence....future wars will be fought in cyber area...information is the power....destroy it..... what is right and what is wrong..... individual..family....city.....country....the governments....the planet.....all are ruled by demons with exceptions of a very minor real human beings
RAJESH
,INDIA, on Apr 09, 2010 01:31 PM
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Stanley Susai
,Mumbai, on Apr 09, 2010 12:23 PM
Our bureaucrats should give-up their stubborn attitudes and invite cooperation from Domestic IT giants for a better solution to such threats
Rakesh
,Bangalore, on Apr 09, 2010 10:23 AM
China clearly is turning out to be a major threat to India. India should take stren measures to avoid such occurances.
Someone
,Somewhere, on Apr 09, 2010 09:49 AM
Indian government should have a separate network that has sensitive data that is separated physically and every possible way from the internet and adopt strict guidelines to follow this. Email (encryption) and digital signing should be employed for all government email addresses, so such fake emails with fake attachments are easily discarded. Digital signing of emails is so very simple and widely used. All recent outlook versions support it. Only thing required is to establish digital certificates which is not a big deal. It happened in 2008, 2009, and in such a big way in 2010. Why isn't the government doing ANYTHING ? I despise cyber snooping and capability for cyber snooping and any form of privacy violation. I have myself been victim of illegal cyber snooping and tapping.
Ashish
,delhi, on Apr 09, 2010 08:35 AM
My point of view is bit differ that if china are threatening India then why would India let them do India have to do something in this regard until its all over because in recent years yes in recent years hackers are getting so much power full then they are today so please Indian hackers do some campaign and other thing to make India aware about hacking threats please please.
arjun
,bangalore, on Apr 09, 2010 08:27 AM
best security is to not have top information on the comp which is connected to the internet.but if the indian government really needs the net to communicate ,then they should device an internet which is only used by the government and is not connected to the world wide web.
Aravindakar
,Malacca, on Apr 09, 2010 07:25 AM
10000 hackers are normal for china but it is too much if this force used for any one at a given time.
Junaid Khan
,Hyderabad, on Apr 08, 2010 11:08 PM
what are indian hackers doing?? After all this what are they waiting for?? They have already showed their prowess against pakistan then why aren't they showing up now? They should now declare the war against chinese hackers. Let them also feel the wrath of our hackers.
Devesh Mahla
,Kharagpur, on Apr 08, 2010 05:06 PM
India is said to be the greatest power so far it comes to the softwares ... but this is strange that it is under severe attack in which it have global recognition .... govt should hire some best talent in the country for this .... which this is not doing because this need to pay extra salary what private pays .... that's why maximum of India's talent in this field is either working in private sector or abroad .....
Hema
,New Delhi, on Apr 08, 2010 04:51 PM
I believe that our country should take some immediate strong step against china, first of all ban all the China's Products in India, we are great users of their products. Then second teach them a good lesson. I am Indian & proud to be.
Tushar Sharma
,Lucknow, on Apr 07, 2010 05:33 PM
we can't blame these things on china and can't force them to follow the cyber protocol. When India is dedicating a huge amount of budget on the defense then why there isn't any dedicated government organization to deal with these kinds of threats. Our top notch politicians and government officials surely need to understand this vulnerability and they need to realize the threat posed by this overlooking these matters every time.
Oum
,Delhi, on Apr 08, 2010 02:19 PM
Yes I am fully agreed with you.
Sagarika.
,vishakapatnam, on Apr 08, 2010 01:18 PM
The present article will become more dangerous in the near future if not rectified further now.Its my sincere request to try to solve this problem and make every possible efforts to totally eradicate this malpractice and nuisance caused on account of it.
Tamal
,India, on Apr 08, 2010 12:50 PM
I think our country should take immediate action in this regard because it will be more fatal and destructive than nuclear war since it can totally derailed our financial system and foreign intelligence. On the other hand India should also develop such hackers to counter attack this type of attack.
Kumar Mittal
,Delhi, on Apr 08, 2010 12:18 PM
No doubt, its disturbing fact but in today's cyber world this is a cyber security threat are a reality with which every one in every part of the world has to deal with. But this could be checked with proper security system which are kept upto date to meat ever new growing threat in the cyber space. That would require dedicated funds for the same as our defence budget and also a Manage security practice of security professionals that would deal with these kind of threats. Along with that a much needed education of our babus would also be required so that basic security sense could also be generated. It would only be then we would be able to minimize these kind of security breaches. Steps could be taken to safeguard to the system but nothing in this world guaranty's complete security.
Janice Taylor-G
,Alexandria, VA, on Apr 08, 2010 01:29 AM
In David Scott’s words, everyone needs to be a mini-Security Officer today. I think Mr. Scott, the author, is right: Most individuals and organizations enjoy Security largely as a matter of luck. For some free insight, check out his blog, “The Business-Technology Weave” – you can Google to it, or search on the site IT Knowledge Exchange which hosts it. Anyone else here reading I.T. WARS? I had to read parts of this book as part of my employee orientation at a new job. The book talks about a whole new culture as being necessary – an eCulture – for a true understanding of security, being that most identity/data breaches are due to simple human errors. It has great chapters on security, as well as risk, content management, project management, acceptable use, various plans and policies, and so on. Just Google IT WARS – check out a couple links down and read the interview with the author David Scott at Boston’s Business Forum. (Full title is I.T. WARS: Managing the Business-Technology Weave in the New Millennium). “In the realm of risk, unmanaged possibilities become probabilities.” Great stuff.
Grant
,Calgary Canada, on Apr 08, 2010 12:16 AM
Shadow Server – white hackers versus black hackers. Google it and you’ll find that WW3 has been ongoing for a few years now costing hundred of billions of dollars, same as a gun war. Shadow Server offers hour by hour free data that pretty much pin-points attacks and responses. The data is available to anyone who asks and is often offered to specific groups/agencies/companies/countries when a major war is imminently to come upon them. Money is the currency of the poor, information is the currency of the rich. How wealthy are you?
moiz arsiwala
,mumbai, on Apr 07, 2010 11:36 PM
cant we build such powerful client server system that would behave on its own i.e AI protects our precious systems and information
Imad
,Bangalore, on Apr 07, 2010 10:57 PM
As of lately my computer has been been tried to get hacked, Luckily my Kaspersky blocks it and logs the ip address. Most disturbing thing is that these ip address belongs to china some ip address in my log 61.132.132.162 89.178.192.222 61.175.243.101 Just google them and you will know they are from china.
Abhay Kapale
,USA, on Apr 07, 2010 09:15 PM
Introduce "Red Team" Concept which will help identify loop holes by performing ethical hacking. Once identified proper controls can be applied.
Arun John Singh
,Delhi, on Apr 07, 2010 07:52 PM
Our people are among the top of the piramid regarding R&D in computing and computer realted things. Why are not our computer wizards asked by various govt. agencies to do the needfull?
TONY BASIL
,COCHIN, on Apr 07, 2010 06:47 PM
Cracking is an inevitable part of network security.It is a good thing that we came to know about this now.Things will get even more difficult for the chinese as all the nations will specifically monitor the traffic from china and take precautionary measures to a point they cant do much.It is a very very good thing that this happened and we came to know
Lost
,Lost, on Apr 07, 2010 06:44 PM
Commonwealth Games is gone be a failure any way ......India doesn`t need Chinese assistance....... lol ! But this hacking incident is serious and must be seriosly dealt with.
Anonymous
,def, on Apr 07, 2010 05:31 PM
Disturbing.

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