US cyber spying foiled over 50 terror plots worldwide, including India

The controversial secret cyber spying programme run by America's National Security Agency (NSA) foiled more than 50 potential terrorist plots in as many as 20 countries, including India.

"The plot included a previously undisclosed plan to blow up the New York Stock Exchange," according to the testimony of NSA chief General Keith Alexander before the House Intelligence Committee.

....Informed sources, however, told PTI that India was among those 20 countries and the time frame of at least one such India-related plot indicate it was around the successful Commonwealth Games in Delhi in 2010.....

.."These programs are limited, focused and subject to rigorous oversight. They have distinct purposes and oversight mechanisms. We have rigorous training programmes for our analysts and their supervisors to understand their responsibilities regarding compliance," Alexander said.

"The disciplined operation of these programmes protects the privacy and civil liberties of the American people," the NSA chief....

Click here to read more ...

Cyber cell freezes fraudulent account

The Pune cyber crime cell convinced its Chinese counterpart to freeze a fraudulent account in which a city-based business supplier had deposited Rs 46 lakh.

...An online fraudster got wind of the impending transaction and forged an e-mail id, posing as the Chinese supplier, and stated that he had created a new bank account for the transaction....

....The fraud came to light only after the Chinese supplier informed Bhagchandani that he had not received the money.

On June 17, Bhagchandani registered a complaint with the cyber crime cell for investigating the fraud.

.....The cell officials said that since the fraudster was in the process of withdrawing the money, the transaction was aborted in time....

Click here to read more ...

Forces must be equipped with dynamic cyber warfare tools: Kalam

....former president APJ Abdul Kalam on Thursday stressed on the need to equip future officers of armed forces to envisage and combat technology-driven warfare....

"The whole war environment will be a network centric warfare and it could be electronically controlled...

...."In technology-centric crimes and war, the crime may originate from a strange place outside the nation shores and may damage the organisational wealth which will be in digital form.

...... the tools of war have also changed to economic competition, control of market forces, essential items like energy, he said, adding that in the next two decades, anti-ballistic defence systems are going to be a major force......
 Click here to read more ....

Mumbai police for second cyber crime station

The Mumbai police have asked the state government to set up a second cyber crime police station in the city after the latest National Crime Records Bureau report showed a worrying three-fold increase in online offences here....
.... the police wrote to the government last week proposing the creation of a new cyber crime police station in the suburbs along the lines of the one in Bandra-Kurla Complex (BKC)....
....Officers trained in fighting online crimes and currently posted in local police stations will be chosen for the new station....
... Mumbai has been wracked by a series of major online frauds in the recent past. In January, two brothers hacked into the current account of a Mulund-based cosmetic firm's director and stole Rs 1 crore....
.. in May  cyber criminals hacked a current account of the RPG Group of companies and siphoned off Rs 2.41 crore in three hours..
...growing crime numbers in the city reflect the swelling figures in the state...

Click here to read more .....

An IT superpower, India has just 556 cyber security experts

The world may acknowledge India as an information technology superpower, but its very own official cyber security workforce comprises a mere 556 experts deployed in various government agencies. How “grossly inadequate” is India’s cyber security manpower can be gauged by the fact that China has 1.25 lakh experts, the U.S. 91,080 and Russia 7,300. ..

....the government has decided to recruit 4,446 experts to be deployed in six organisations that would take care of India’s cyber security infrastructure.....

.... India is also setting up its own ‘cyber security architecture’ that will comprise the National Cyber Coordination Centre (NCCC) for threat assessment and information sharing among stakeholders...

.....The NSCS has identified over a dozen ‘critical information infrastructure’ sectors/ facilities requiring protection. These include the civil aviation sector (Air Traffic Control or ATC), Railways’ passenger reservation system and communication network, port management, companies and organisations in power, oil and natural gas sectors, banking and finance, and telecom sectors.....

Click here to read more ...

Exclusive: ‘Location tracking’ of every Indian mobile user by 2014

The government has directed all telecom service providers to make location details, a mandatory part of call data records (CDR) of all mobile users in the country, starting mid- 2014, according to a Department of Telecommunications (DoT) directive obtained byFirstpost.....
..... While the location tracking exercise has its genesis in a DoT order issued in May 2011, its effect on the ground should be visible from mid- 2014.

To start with, these details will be provided for specified mobile numbers. “However, within a period of three years location details shall be part of CDR for all mobile calls,” said the directive.....

....Jiten Jain, Delhi based cyber security analyst, said that going by the kind of information which the government already possess, it is not surprising if location details become part of CDR. “But monitoring the location of every citizen is like creating a monster,” he said.......

Click here to read more ...

India Inc should wake up to the cyber threats

.....The government is readying a cyber security framework, a cyber security policy and a National Cyber Coordination Centre (NCCC) that will monitor metadata on cyber traffic flows.....
......strong public-private partnership can secure the nation and its vital functions. This calls for coordinated action on multiple fronts. One is policy and legislation, to ensure integrity and accountability to cyber monitoring......
...The government proceeds as if one clause in the Information Technology Act is enough to protect Indians' privacy....
... A second front is technological capability. From setting standards and testing of equipment to advances in cryptography.....
.......Public awareness and involvement is the third area of action. From passive securing of individual phones and computers to active research in combating cyber attacks and snooping, a range of activity calls for vigorous participation by India's youth......

Click here to read more ...

New cyber security body to rope in ISPs

Indian government is rolling out a new cybersecurity architecture at a time when it turns out that India is among the top five countries whose data has been compromised by the US' NSA surveillance system.

..The new architecture, which was cleared by the Cabinet last month, envisages an interconnected set of organizations in key departments....

...A key aspect of the architecture is that the government will work with ISPs to oversee metadata of Indian users but not mine the data.....

...However, unlike China, India has lagged behind in implementing IPv6 (internet protocol) which is not only more secure but also makes it easier to "hide" certain important information through encryption that is not possible under the current IPv4 in use here....

....The expectation is that the new cybersecurity policy will somehow stop the sniping that happens regularly between Indian cyber entities....

Click here to read more .....

India gets ready to roll out cyber snooping agency

.......National Cyber Coordination Centre (NCCC) — that would carry out “real-time assessment of cyber security threats” and “generate actionable reports/alerts for proactive actions” by law enforcement agencies.......

“The NCCC will collect, integrate and scan [Internet] traffic data from different gateway routers of major ISPs at a centralised location for analysis, international gateway traffic and domestic traffic will be aggregated separately....

......Government sources said the government would also involve Internet service providers (ISPs) to ensure round-the-clock monitoring of the Internet, while expertise of other private sector organisations would be utilised when required......

.....Apart from monitoring the Internet, the NCCC would look into various threats posed by cyber attacks....... 
Click here to read more .....

Chinese hacked Obama, McCain campaigns, took internal documents, officials say

By Michael Isikoff
National investigative correspondent

The U.S. secretly traced a massive cyberespionage operation against the 2008 presidential campaigns of Barack Obama and John McCain to hacking  units backed by the People’s Republic of China, prompting  high level warnings to Chinese officials to stop such activities,  U.S. intelligence officials tell NBC News.

....

“There’s been successful exfiltration of data from government agencies (by the Chinese) up and down Pennsylvania Avenue,” said Shawn Henry, who headed up the FBI’s probe of the 2008 attacks as the bureau’s chief of cyberinvestigations. 

Click here to read more ....

Software experts to help govt deal with cyber crimes

To deal with the increasing instances of cyber crime, the Haryana government has decided to engage private information technology (IT) experts.

The state government has decided to constitute special teams possessing professional IT skills to promptly detect and investigate cyber crimes.

......"Investigation of cyber crimes including tampering, intrusion, hacking, morphing and phishing needs high software expertise.......

.....These teams will be stationed at Gurgaon to provide such service to the entire state," a state government's official spokesperson said on Sunday......

Click here to read more ..