Chinese Hackers use Local Electronics for Spying against Anybody of Choice

Erstwhile Chief of USA's counter-terrorism operations, Richard Clarke points out that any Chinese electronic appliance can help hackers from that country towards performing espionage followed with attacking the person of their choice....

Explaining his assertion in detail, Clarke states that every laptop, PC, Apple gadget, Android device, as also even a TV could contain backdoor Trojans for spreading further infection and carrying out more malicious activities.

Importantly, backdoor Trojans are a form of malware that creates a clandestine vector enabling an attacker to remotely gain admission into the infected PC and thereafter manipulate it.

The Chinese strategy of hackers using electronics not just lets the country execute cyber-attacks on those acting as its enemies; however, it even allows espionage against those same countries followed with theft of their highly precious or top secrets. Actually, backdoor Trojans are really capable of helping in martial operations.................

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Online fraudsters pose as RBI governor

Online fraudsters have devised a new modus operandi to dupe gullible netizens, by sending emails, purportedly from none other than the Reserve Bank of India. Going a step further, not only the names of United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and RBIGovernor D Subbarao are being used in the mails, purportedly being sent as 'payment notification', released by the RBI; but going a step further, the mails also carry D Subbarao's picture adding to their 'authenticity'. In return, the 'target' is asked to furnish all his personal and financial details and deposit a sum of few thousands rupees initially to avail a bounty of thousands of US Dollars..............

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Indians using internet prefer e-banking to online shopping

A majority of Indians prefer to use the internet for banking and other financial services than shopping online, shows a new survey. 

Almost 57 per cent of Indian respondents using the internet prefer to bank online and use other financial services due to hassle- free easy access and time saving feature of online banking, according to the survey conducted by research firm Ipsos. 

Checking information on products and services online comes a close second at 53 percent while 50 percent shop for products online. Around 42 percent of respondents in India surfed online to look for jobs in the last three months...........

Most of the banks in India have introduced customer- friendly online banking facility with advanced security features to protect customers against cybercrime..... 

The Indian results closely track the global trends as well. Conducted among 19,216 people from 24 countries, the survey showed banking and keeping track of finances, shopping and searching for jobs are the main tasks of internet users around the globe.......... 
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Cyber-defence slow due to generation gap

Sluggish moves to counter the rising threat of cyber-attacks can be blamed on a generation of policymakers out of touch with rapid technological change, a senior US official said Monday.

The truth is there are a lot of senior officials in many countries who barely even know how to use an email. The change will come with the new generation................

Estonia is one of the world's most wired nations, and its high-tech savvy has earned it the nickname "E-Stonia".

Home to NATO's cyber-defence centre, founded in 2008, the nation of 1.3 million has been at the forefront of efforts to preempt cyber-attacks.

Estonia has bitter experience in the field.

A politically charged dispute with its Soviet-era master Moscow in 2007 was marked by a blistering cyber-attack blamed on Russian hackers -- though the Kremlin denied any involvement.........

In order to pursue the goal of a world free from nuclear weapons, we are going to have to think bigger and bolder.

New concepts are not invented overnight, and we don't understand the full range of possibilities inherent in the information age, but we would be remiss if we did not start thinking about whether new technologies can augment over half a century of arms control negotiating expertise.........

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Bandra man held for threat calls to netas

The anti-terrorism squad (ATS) on Tuesday arrested a 41-year-old man for allegedly posing as an al-Qaida operative and threatening to kill political leaders..........

Shahbandri used an advanced software to make threat calls to politicians via the internet using the numbers of people he owed money to or held a grudge against. This, said the police, is the first time a spoofing case has been detected in Maharashtra. Shahbandri has been booked for impersonation, identity theft, hacking and criminal intimidation. 

Shahbandri is a Std XII passout and computer-savvy. He has worked in Oman and Dubai. He is originally from Bhatkal in Karnataka but is into the passport and visa business in Mumbai. He used the numbers of some of his clients he had failed to get visas for. The clients were demanding their money back and Shahbandri came up wth the threat-call plan to buy himself time to repay them....

Shahbandri's also used the number of a man he suspected his wife was having an affair with to make threat calls to a leader....

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India, Israel to launch research in cyber-security, energy

India and Israel have agreed to launch a long-term joint programme worth USD 10 million annually to facilitate research and academic activities benefiting them in areas like renewable and sustainable energies, bio-medical sciences and cyber-security.

The decision came after Minister of Human Resource Development Kapil Sibal met Israel's Minister of Finance Yuval Steinitz and others here.

The total scope of the programme will reach USD Five Million from each side annually in steady state, over a three year period. The programme will be coordinated by the University Grants Commission (UGC) on the Indian side and the Israel Science Foundation (ISF) on the Israeli side.

The joint working group has identified broad areas for cooperation, such as renewable and sustainable energies, bio-medical sciences, cyber-security, humanities and social sciences.

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Engineer held for stealing proprietary software from Hyderabad firm

State police have arrested a civil engineer from Mumbai on charge of stealing and tampering with the proprietary computer software and the source code of a city-based computer educational firm and later offering it for sale........

On interrogation, the accused confessed that he had stolen the software from the complainant's company (which is running computer-based educational and tutorial classes) while he was undergoing training in the organisation here.........

Vivek further confessed that in order to gain easy money he stole the software which is the valuable intellectual property of the complainant's company..............


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Teacher sends lewd SMSs to 12-yr-old

A Class VIII student has accused a teacher of repeatedly misbehaving with her and sending her obscene emails and SMSes in Mulund.

The police said the 12-yearold victim had complained that her Hindi teacher used to send at least one such message and an email every day since December 2011. The accused then started making calls to find out her reaction to the messages and mails she had received.

The accused, identified as Anupam Dwivedi, is a Hindi teacher with an English medium school in Mulund where the victim studies. Dwivedi had sent the obscene text messages to the victim asking her to have a physical relationship with him..............

Dwivedi has been booked for outraging the modesty of a woman and for sending or writing obscene and vulgar messages ...............

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हैकरों के सबसे आसान शिकार हैं भारतीय

इंटरनेट की दुनिया में हैकरों और साइबर अपराधियों के सबसे आसान शिकार भारतीय ही हैं। इंटरनेट पर सर्फिंग करने में तो भारतीय खूब वक्त दे रहे हैं लेकिन खुद को सुरक्षित कैसे करें, इस बात से इंटरनेट इस्तेमाल करने वाले अनजान हैं। साइबर सुरक्षा के लिए काम कर रही अंतरराष्ट्रीय एजेंसी नॉर्टन के सर्वेक्षण में यह खुलासा हुआ है। 
साइबर सुरक्षा को लेकर अज्ञानता की वजह से ही जहां पिछले साल देश में लगभग 34 करोड़ रुपये का साइबर अपराध हुआ था। 
...
सर्वेक्षण के मुताबिक भारत में लोग जानते तो हैं कि कंप्यूटर पर काम करने के लिए खुद को सुरक्षित करने की जरूरत है, लेकिन सुरक्षा के उपाय करने में वह पीछे हैं।
...
भारत में इंटरनेट यूजर्स कंप्यूटर पर अपनी निजी जानकारियों को बहुत कीमती मानते है लेकिन इनमें से ज्यादातर को पता नहीं कि इसे आखिर कैसे सुरक्षित रखा जाए। शायद यही कारण है कि देश में इंटरनेट यूजर्स साइबर अपराधियों और हैकरों के लिए सबसे आसान शिकार है। 
...
नॉर्टन ने पिछले साल खुलासा किया था कि देश में 34 करोड़ 20 लाख रुपये का साइबर अपराध हुआ। 


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Dad in soup for 'posting' dirty pics on daughter's Facebook

A commercial tax department officer from Rajkot has landed in trouble for liking 'sensuous' photographs on Facebook and 'causing mental agony' to his daughter.

Surat police have booked Sanjay Gandhi for distributing obscene material after his estranged wife complained that "objectionable pictures of women" appeared on the FB wall of their 14-year-old daughter when she befriended herfather on the social networking site. The girl had sent him a request to get some guidance on a school project.

When she saw the pictures that her father had liked, she informed her mother Nila, who asked Sanjay to remove the photographs and apologize. When he turned down the requests, Nila moved the court..............
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Cyber borders not foolproof

Putting up a brave face against the alleged espionage by Chinese hackers against Indian defence and shipping companies, a report filed by Trend Micro, a global computer security group has nailed Gu Kaiyuan, a graduate from the Sichuan University in Chengdu, China.

Not only has this report sent ripples of fear across the country’s defence wings, but also pointed out the obvious vulnerability of the untrained defence personnel, who might be accessing sensitive information through emails and the internet...........

This was a systematic attack on around 233 personal computers and the victims spanned across Asia. The victims in India included officials from the Indian military research organisations, shipping companies, aerospace and energy companies. The LuckyCat campaign has been active since at least June 2011. The campaign has been linked to 90 attacks against these industries..............

The report further shows that they traced the attacks to an email address used to register one of the command-and-control servers that directed the attacks.........

The hacker had sent out emails to the victims with a subject line that read ‘Indian Ballistic Military Defence Program’ (in detail inside information). Once the mail is opened, a malware is directly installed to the person’s computer and their communication, emails and other files can then be accessed by the hacker. From the start, this did not seem like a simple cyber crime, it is a spying activity.........

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Another online post of religious place sparks protests in Hyd

Close on the heels of the Sangareddy incident, in which, a photo of a religious site was uploaded on a social networking website, another picture of a place of worship was posted on the Facebook, leading to protests near Charminar here today...................... 


A complaint was earlier lodged at Hussaini police station here, alleging that some miscreant had hurt their religious feelings by morphing the photo of the religious structure belonging to their community..........


The DCP further said they had earlier received petitions stating that some anti-social elements were trying to create a rift between two communities for selfish gains by posting some "indecent and morphed" photographs of various places of worship of different communities on social networking website- Facebook............. 
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Man held for cyberstalking couple

A minor flutter was created at the city police commissionerate campus after a 36-year-old Keralite, arrested by cyber crime cell police and accused of inflicting mental pressure and trauma on a Coimbatore-based journalistand his wife by posting obscene mails and creating fake profiles on social network sites, tried to flee from the cyber cell office on Friday......................

He was earlier arrested in September 2011 for similar offence against the couple but managed to leave the country........

The accused, S Pradeep Kumar alias Manu of Koonnananikkal House in Sulthan Bathery in Wayanad was working as senior sales executive in RAK Ceramics in Dubai. He was making obscene phone calls and uploading digitally modified photographs to harass the couple.............
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China’s Tencent employee attacks Indian websites

Websites of Indian government and Tibetan activists in the country are under attack in a cyber attack campaign engineered by a Chinese hacker, working with one of the world's largest e-tailers Tencent.......................

The Luckycat cyber campaign, has been linked to 90 attacks in recent past against targets in India and Japan, as well as against Tibetan activists. 'Luckycat' has been able to compromise about 233 computers many of which are in India...............

The victims, include Indian military research organisations and shipping companies, besides aerospace, energy and engineering companies in Japan...........

The owner of the attack alias, according to online records, is Gu Kaiyuan, a former graduate student at Sichuan University, in Chengdu, China. The university receives government financing for its research in computer network defence. The hacker is now an employee at Tencent, China's leading internet company..............

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'Anonymous' says it won't shut down internet

NEW DELHI: Will hackers, allegedly associated with a group called Anonymous, shut down internet on March 31? According to the group'sTwitter account, from where it communicates with the world, the answer is no............... 
Anonymous is a loosely knit group of hackers and hacktivists. In the past, they have attacked government and corporate websites to protest what they perceived was injustice.....................


"To protest SOPA, Wallstreet, our irresponsible leaders and the beloved bankers who are starving the world for their own selfish needs out of sheer sadistic fun, On March 31, anonymous will shut the Internet down," stated the note. It highlighted that internet can be shut down by attack on 13 root DNS servers that play a crucial role in making sure that web users reach their desired websites. ................
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Indian netizens spend over 8 hours a day online

A new survey has revealed thatinternet users in India spend an average of 58 hours a week online; that's more than half the time they are awake. What's even more interesting is that half the netizens interviewed admitted that they suffered from internet withdrawal within the first three hours of being cut off from the web.

Indians are spending 12.9 hours browsing, 9.7 hours socializing and 6.1 hours on email every week........................

Of all activities, the respondents said they would miss doing work-related tasks the most if left without an internet connection. Social networking was the second most important task, while "convenience of life" activities like paying bills and shopping online came third. In fact, 83% of users said they couldn't live without the internet for more than 24 hours...........................

The need to stay constantly connected is a new trend among Indian net surfers.............
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Is your internet at risk?

A growing issue in the West is coming to India: the threat to net neutrality. The concept of net neutrality is based on the idea that companies which offer internet access should treat all internet content equally, in terms of speed, pricing, and access. It is important to protect this principle because if ISPs and telecom operators use their connectivity to influence how and what users consume, it can result in either censorship by a private company or anti-competitive practices. 

The internet was built as an open network, where information could flow freely. In this environment, innovation, entrepreneurship, and democracy have thrived all over the world. Governments, including that of India, have rightly limited its openness when it violates laws, such as defamation or piracy, but such restrictions are imposed only in public interest. 

The challenge to net neutrality is that the decisions of what content to censor or to give preference to, lies in the hands of ISPs, which are predominantly corporate entities.........


As India's internet subscriber base grows - there are already more than 100 million users - and more people use the net to complete their transactions, like buying railway tickets, books, music, access information or share files - there are concerns that if the principles of net neutrality are not followed, ISPs could control what you can and cannot surf...............
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Microsoft co-founder's identity stolen by US soldier

A US soldier's scheme to defraud one of the world's richest men has landed him in federal custody.

In a criminal complaint unsealed yesterday, federal investigators allege Brandon Lee Price changed the address on a bank account held byMicrosoft co-founder Paul Allen, then had adebit card sent to his home so he could use it for payments on a delinquent Armed Forces Bank account and personal expenses.

Price was absent without leave at the time. Price called Citibank in January and changed the address on an account held by Allen from Seattle to Pittsburgh, then called back three days later to say he'd lost his debit card and asked for a new one to be sent to him..........

The card was used to attempt a $15,000 Western Union transaction and to make a $658.81 payment on the Armed Forces Bank loan account the day it was activated.....
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Jilted lover creates fake Facebook account of woman, arrested

A youth has been arrested on charges of creating a fake Facebook account and posting defamatory and obscene comments about a woman, who had rejected his love proposal.........

The accused Mohammed Osman Ali, resident of Nalgonda district created a fake Facebook account of the victim and transmitted vulgar comments stating that the victim was going to deliver a baby shortly......

During Police interrogation, the accused confessed that he had developed affection and love for the woman, but she and her family members had rejected his proposal..........

After his proposal was rejected, he bore a grudge against the complainant and created a fake Facebook profile in her name by uploading her photo, mobile number and personal details with obscene text....

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New variant shows Duqu attackers still in operation

Security researchers at Symantec has flagged a new variant of the Duqu cyber-espionage Trojan, a clear sign that the attacks are still ongoing.

The latest Duqu driver was compiled in February 2012, more than four months after Duqu was first flagged as a unique piece of malware “striking similarities” toStuxnet, the mysterious computer worm that targeted nuclear facilities in Iran.

Symantec identified the newly compiled Duqu driver as mcd9×86.sys and said it contains no new functionality beyond spying and collecting data from infected machines.

Duqu is a highly specialized Trojan capable of gathering intelligence data and assets from entities, such as industrial control system manufacturers, in order to more easily conduct a future attack against another third party.................

Kaspersky Lab’s Costin Raiu says the latest variant has been engineered to escape detection by the open-source Duqu detector toolkit released by CrySyS Lab..........

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