[iwar] [4gw] Financial Express story on attacks on Indian websites (fwd)

From: Fred Cohen (fc@all.net)
Date: 2001-11-13 06:03:35

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From: Fred Cohen <fc@all.net>
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Date: Tue, 13 Nov 2001 06:03:35 -0800 (PST)
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Subject: [iwar] [4gw] Financial Express story on attacks on Indian websites (fwd)
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Financial Express, Nov 13, 2001, Tue

http://www.financialexpress.com/fe20011113/efetop4.html

Hackers train guns on Indian websites

Vandana Gombar in New Delhi

After September 11, India-baiters in cyber-space lay
low for a while. However, they are back with a bang.
The latest victims include bhartiyahotels.com,
123medicineindia.com, kamalkapoor.com, delhimarket.com
and jyotishvani.com. 

The defacers, signing as ‘Pakistan Cyber Warriors’
have sprinkled words like bugz, deathsymbol,
Paki-King, and allahhuakbar sprinkled on the victim
sites. “Catch me if uuu can my deraz lazy adminzzz,”
they taunted at the 123medicinindia.com site. At
jyotishvani.com, an inane line announced: “The foolish
jyotish stuff is hacked.” The hackers also offered
salutations to ‘Usama’ Bin Laden. 

Project India Cracked, which tracks defacement of
India-theme sites, described the weekend attacks as
the biggest mass defacement, with as many as 197 sites
being affected. “So far, 333 websites have been
defaced in the year 2001,” it said. 

The number of hack-attacks could actually be much
higher since many victims chose to remain silent.
“Only one out of ten attacks are reported. Corporate
victims, particularly, chose to remain silent for fear
of negative publicity,” cyber law expert and advocate,
supreme court, Pawan Duggal, said. Admission of
hacking by a site offering on-line transactions, for
example, could give a serious jolt to business. 

Mr Duggal said that he was also aware of corporate
intranets of many “leading companies in the knowledge
space” being hacked. But there is a tight lid on the
names. 

“The most vulnerable sites are those with shared
hosting. They would be well-advised to resort to
dedicated servers to minimise the threat of these
attacks,” Infotech and telecom consultant Ravi
Visvesvarya Prasad said. 

Although 100 per cent security can never be
guaranteed, most Indian companies are under-investing
in network security. According to National Association
of Software and Service Companies (Nasscom), only 0.8
per cent of web expenditure is accounted for by
e-security, whereas the international average is 5.4
per cent. 

India does have cyber laws to deal with such attacks
but prosecution is limited to groups residing within
India whereas these attacks, in most cases, emanate
from outside India. Nevertheless, some brave
corporates like the State Bank of India have gone
ahead and registered a case under section 66 of the IT
act, which recognises hacking as a penal offence.
Penalty includes a three-year prison term or a fine of
Rs 2 lakh, or both.

Since hack-attacks bring into question the security of
data in cyberspace, industry experts warn that these
instances would threaten the fledgling e-commerce
industry in the country.
Virus hoax.

After websites, it was the turn of mobile phone users
to be alarmed, this time around by what handset
manufacturers and cellular service providers say is a
hoax. An e-mail message doing the rounds warned
against taking calls that show caller identity
“unavailable.” If the call is taken, the phone would
be disabled beyond salvage, the message warns.

The List owner is Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad:  4gw-owner@yahoogroups.com, r_v_p@yahoo.com

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