Intelligence agencies warn corporate India may be the next target of Chinese hackers
Intelligence agencies warn corporate India may be the next target of Chinese hackers
After trying to infiltrate into computers used by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates and the British foreign office, emails of Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd besides websites of foreign ministries and embassies of over 100 hundred countries including India, Chinese hackers are training their virtual guns on India Inc.
The recent revelation of an international spy networku00a0GhostNetu00a0by the officials commissioned by the Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama has proved the potential of Chinese hackers beyond any doubt. The researchers found that computers in over 100 countries were infected by spyware that enabled Chinese hackers to steal classified information.
A recent report by the Indian intelligence agencies has categorically warned that some Chinese multinational companies and hardware manufacturers may have been working hand-in-glove with Chinese cyber crooks. The report also recommended keeping a strict control over products of the Chinese MNC.
"There is a high probability that all these Chinese hardware, which are cheaply available in the markets, are embedded with malware and tools. Intelligence agencies have recommended that government offices must not to use Chinese hardware in their computers," said a senior Home Ministry official. He added that the hackers may try to strike big among the networks and websites used by the India Inc.
Almost a year back, one such Chinese MNC was put under intelligence scanner based on the inputs that the company's India-based offices were involved in hacking some Korean official websites. Sources informed that the company was provided with more than US $ 5 billion by the Chinese government to expand its Indian operations.
"Unlike Pakistani hackers Chinese hackers never leave any trace. Their expertise is far superior than other hackers from the region," said intelligence official, requesting anonymity. He also said that the Home Ministry and other departments concerned have already been updated on the developing situation.
The Chinese hackers have also become a big nuisance to the cyber security experts as almost all of them are anonymous while operating under Chinese government control. "There are more than 1,000 such groups operating under government control. These are loosely based on the call centre concept and they go through several trial runs before actually attacking any website," said cyber security expert on the condition of anonymity.
Cyber crime expert Sunny Vaghela said, "The Chinese model is closely followed by Pakistani hackers. Chinese hackers have used Shell programming to install a '*.exe' file in the web server that extracts necessary information from the source. Shell is malicious programme which works as a backdoor and helps in spying. Chinese hackers are sharp and furious as they register to different servers mostly US-based servers which host many websites then these hackers find vulnerability in any of the site in the server and then get control over the complete server."
The intentions of these hackers are monetary and spying on the important websites.
Nearly 70 per cent of small and medium IT companies have failed the international standards for web security. Not because the procedures are expensive, but because they are too apathetic to go for certification. "We get cases of phishing, data theft and even misuse of private information everyday," he adds.
In fact, there are various forums created by hackers where they boast about the number of websites they have hacked. "It's tough to track down new-age hackers as after meddling with contents and even writing HACKED in bold across the site, they remove the data log," Vaghela said.
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