Never-ending menace of cyber warfare

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Never-ending menace of cyber warfare

The threat of cyber hacking just doesn’t stop. And on the vanguard is none other than China

Prasad Ramasubramanian

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

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Intruders on the Internet are omnipresent. As the world acerbically celebrated the 30th birthday of spam, our neighbors have yet again indulged in cyber combat clearly threatening the security of the nation.

For the dilettantes, cyber warfare refers to the usage of Internet and computers as a medium to accomplish destructive tasks. These attacks could vary from serene to severe and could be clubbed into myriad categories.

Such warfare are conducted to destroy web pages while an attack in the form of a propaganda is often undertaken to reach politicized messages to those who have access to that particular page or Internet.

Also, a host of computers from one nation could assail computer in another nation and such attacks could be clubbed into Denial of Service attacks where the aftereffects could be fatal.

It does not end there. Cyber attacks could make infrastructural functionalities such as fuel, power, transportation services and communications becoming vulnerable too.

Analysts believe that the topic of security has grown into monstrous proportions and is a national concern as visible from the way Indian government has gone on to damage control.

China: The cyber crime capital of the world?

Circa 2003, computer networks in the United States were attacked in a synchronized manner and the US authorities had coined the attacks as 'Titan Rain.'

However, the exact nature and purpose of these attacks were not found but China surely came under the hammer for increasingly using Internet as a weapon to strike the security of other countries.

In April 2008, Chinese reprobates had broken the barrier to gain entry into the Ministry of External Affairs server.

This case was reinforced when McAfee unfurled its annual report last year that put China in the vanguard of cyber combat.

The area of attacks

Our neighbors have relentlessly intruded the administerial networks of India, mapped them, giving them a channel to know the content and also the know-how of rendering them inoperative.

Analysts opine that attacks of such magnitude cannot be taken lightly and one can vividly recollect the incident in August 2007 when Swedish based hacker Dan Egerstad had hacked 100 email accounts of government offices and embassies around the world that included about 13 establishments in India.

The hacker had famously quipped that he was only testing the security available in the system and had no intention to hack them.

It isn't funny when one comes to know that Chinese cyber armory contains three key elements: mapping of networks, BOTS and key loggers.

Analysts want a proactive approach to be followed by government sites in dealing with such nuisances.

Sai Chintala , vice president, Testing, AppLabs while speaking to CyberMedia News wanted the affected sites to have independent security audit to be followed. "There are audits such as product security audit, web application, penetration testing audit, external network assessment audit, and internal network assessment audit", he states.

Need for awareness

Apart from having a proactive approach, there is need for awareness, a mantra which everyone seems to be agreeing to. "Getting the awareness is important and since AppLabs has not directly worked with the government agencies, we are not sure of the culture and bureaucracy and the awareness that exist in that environment but I can tell you that in the last one year, we have seen our business double in India and that shows that in the private sector there is tremendous awareness which is present", says Chintala.

Also, Chintala is categorical in voicing for a need in possessing a compliance mechanism to help deal with this issue. "Just like CMM (Capability Maturity Model) Certification which is a must for IT enterprises, the government agencies too must come up with certification to bring the faith of its customers back."

Strong cross border cyber laws?

Apart from awareness, this episode has thrown light on the growing need for cross border cyber laws and pundits opine that like the Information Technology Act, 2000-there has to be amendments to the act and bring in strict cross country cyber laws that would nab the culprits.

"There is an ardent need for cross border cyber laws. I do not know whether cyber laws that are applicable to India would be applicable to the ones in China. If such an act was committed by a person in India then we have strict laws to curb them but someone sitting outside, it becomes difficult", avers S Maheshwaran, technical manager - SAARC, Websense Inc.

Not only does the government is required to put forth a strong cross border cyber law in place but also needs to beef up its websites and cyber security programs as a first step to stop this menace.

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