India readies cyber army to hack into hostile nations' computer systems

[Choppers]

Spy Game: India readies cyber army to hack into hostile nations' computer systems​

NEW DELHI: Borrowing a page from China’s art of cyber war, the government is giving shape to an IT infrastructure setup manned by a small army of software professionals to spy on the classified data of hostile nations by hacking into their computer systems.

IT workers and ethical hackers who sign up for the ambitious project will be protected by law, says the proposal being discussed by senior government administrators. The expertise of these professionals will be used to go on the offensive or preempt strikes by breaching the security walls of enemy systems.

The strategy of taking the fight to hackers was drafted at a high-level security meet on July 29 chaired by National Security Advisor Shiv Shankar Menon. The meeting was attended by the director of Intelligence Bureau as well as senior officials of the telecom department, IT ministry and security agencies, documents seen by ET show. Departments whose officials were present at the meeting did not respond to ET emails.

The government is worried about spying and sabotage from neighbouring countries, particularly China and Pakistan, after a spate of assaults on its computer systems in recent times. The Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto said in April that a clique of hackers based in China had conducted extensive spying operations in India, pilfering confidential documents from the defence ministry.

Though Beijing strongly denied any role in the attacks, the investigation pointed to the Chinese government’s tacit approval of the spying operations. The technical reconnaissance bureau of the People’s Liberation Army that is responsible for signals intelligence collection is headquartered in Chengdu, where the hackers had set up base.

According to the government proposal, the National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO) along with Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) will be responsible for creating cyber-offensive capabilities. NTRO is a key government agency that gathers technical intelligence while DIA is tasked with collating inputs from the Navy, Army and Air Force.

The NTRO will also suggest measures to ensure legal protection to recruits, a move that is expected to coax software professionals into joining the government group because under the Indian IT Act, hacking is punishable with imprisonment up to three years, or carries a fine up to `2 lakh, or both.

“Even if the offense is done on a computer on foreign soil, it is punishable under Indian laws,” says cyber lawyer Pavan Duggal, adding that the IT Act will have to be changed for “patriotic stealth operations”.

Mr Duggal welcomed the efforts to establish a hacker group, pointing to the explosive growth in assaults on Indian systems recently. Last year, 600 computers belonging to the external affairs ministry were hacked, allegedly by Chinese groups. The hackers also managed to steal crucial documents from the computers of the defence establishment then.

Vikas Desai, lead technical lead of network security firm RSA, said the government’s efforts can be classified as ethical hacking. “Many countries and organisations in the world already have this kind of infrastructure,” he said.

In sheer numbers at least, recruitment may not be a problem. The country is due to produce nearly 5.71 lakh technical graduates and postgraduates in 2010, says IT lobby group Nasscom. There is also a teeming workforce in India thanks to large anti-virus and software companies such as McAfee, Microsoft, Intel establishing R&D labs here.

The government is not taking chances, however. The NSA’s National Security Council Secretariat has directed the HRD and IT ministries to introduce cyber security in the curriculum of IITs and education institutes.

The government also plans to amplify efforts to strengthen its cyber armour. A National Testing Centre to check all types of hardware and software being sourced by departments for spyware will be established to prevent India’s computers from coming under attack.

The NSA has also asked the Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO) and DIA to magnify efforts against electromagnetic-pulse bombs that can interrupt wireless signals inside the country. It has also directed the DIA to harden its Transient ElectroMagnetic Pulse Emanations Standards, known as TEMPEST in military parlance. Hardening TEMPEST to a geek means lowering the chances of interception of data transferred by defence agencies on the internet.

To enable this, the government wants to involve engineers and scientists from the IITs and Indian Institutes of Science to develop highly-encrypted algorithms, in large numbers. The high-level meeting notes that government’s cyber efforts are stumped by its ability to produce no more than 3-4 such algorithms in a year.

:: Bharat-Rakshak.com - Indian Military News Headlines ::

Another Article

Govt. gathers programmers to hack hostile nations systems - SiliconIndia

 

[mjnaushad]

Source.............

 

[gurjot]

it's good to hack rather than getting hacked.

 

[Masterchief]

India readies cyber army to hack into hostile nations' computer systems

New Delhi: India is all set to enter into the arena of cyber war. The government is forming an army of software professionals to hack computer systems of hostile nations. According to the proposal by government administrators, IT workers and ethical hackers, who sign up for the project will get protection from law.

The software professionals will have to use their expertise to breach the security walls of enemy systems.In recent times, India faced a spate of assaults on its computer systems, and the government is worried about spying attempts from neighbouring countries like China and Pakistan. According to the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto, a China-based group of hackers had conducted extensive spying operations in India, stealing defence ministry's confidential documents.

The National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO) along with Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) will be responsible for creating cyber-offensive capabilities, said the government proposal. NTRO uses to gather technical intelligence, while DIA compare inputs from the Navy, Army and Air Force.

Apart from gathering technical intelligence, NTRO will also suggest measures to ensure legal protection to recruits. The move is expected to persuade software professionals into joining the government group as under the Indian IT Act, hacking is punishable with imprisonment up to three years, or carries a fine up to 2 lakh, or both.

According to Vikas Desai, lead technical lead of network security firm RSA, the government's efforts can be classified as ethical hacking, as many countries and organisations in the world have already adopted this infrastructure.

India is due to produce nearly 5.71 lakh technical graduates and postgraduates in 2010. Hence, recruitment may not be a problem, according to Nasscom.

Govt. gathers programmers to hack hostile nations systems - SiliconIndia

so whats the big deal about it, every nation has to have a cyber army

 

[sqlinjection]

Most of the attacks coming are now days are more sophisticated and are based on web application exploitation.Other exploit unpatched devices.Some scientist now at blackhat conference said that SSL based vpn can also be cracked as per their research.Governments certainly posses that power so we should not be surprised as chinese sniffing our traffic . Moreover security in India is immature and government and companies donot consider this as major risk but now they are becoming more involved in this.
The bank where i work , we usally get complaints that their money is being transferred , people put their username and password to phishing sites same case with government, governments are not proactive they just responds to patch the vulnerability after it being exploited.

 

[Dr.Evil]

A Step in the right direction.

In cyber security you have to pro-active than reactive.

 

[whocares]

this is a big problem in an open democracy. everything we do is in the open. for chrissakes matters relating to national security should be kept under wraps.

 

[Patriot]

What a shameful act and we have Indians talking about ethics.Even though China does it at least they don't do it officially but Indian Government is openly doing it.Doing it openly will invite massive retaliation.I am quite surprised that indian members are happy as they're mostly condemning this kind of stuff.

 

[indushek]

Very good step but should be followed with great zeal.

 

[indushek]

What a shameful act and we have Indians talking about ethics.Even though China does it at least they don't do it officially but Indian Government is openly doing it.Doing it openly will invite massive retaliation.

What a hypocrite u are, though the Chinese govt gives no official backing in the open has it done anything on this?? Hypocracy at its best. The only thing u are feeling bad about is that India is doing this. If this had been the news by Chinese u would have been singing songs in their praise. We talk and practise ethics thats the reason why we are doing it in open.

 

[Patriot]

What a hypocrite u are, though the Chinese govt gives no official backing in the open has it done anything on this?? Hypocracy at its best. The only thing u are feeling bad about is that India is doing this. If this had been the news by Chinese u would have been singing songs in their praise. We talk and practise ethics thats the reason why we are doing it in open.

Typical reply as the post quoted was of a Pakistani.I don't think i will feel any threat from this nor do i care but this is shameful.I know for a fact that China hacked into Pentagon several times much less Indian Security System which would be inferior to Pentagon Security.Heck even Pakistani Hackers hacked your Indian Army officer PC so its no big deal for us but cyber space should be kept clean from all type of hackers - Indian Pakistani or any other.Pakistan has also cracked down hard on crackers if you are following the news and see the thread about hacking on this forum plenty of members are against it.

 

[sqlinjection]

A Step in the right direction.

In cyber security you have to pro-active than reactive.

Yes you are right most of the vendors are promising with zeroday attack measures.Security is very complex and have many branches, Application security to network security all these have to work in relation to each other in biger organisation like BCP and risk assesment and proper process and standard implementation should come from government side.You know government works very slow in implementing standards(iso27001,pcidss,cobit etc) and till then game is over.

 

[Tshering22]

Shouldn't they keep such stuff a secret? Our phny stupid defense journalists leak everything. Can't keep anything in their stomachs can't they?

 

[sqlinjection]

Typical reply as the post quoted was of a Pakistani.I don't think i will feel any threat from this nor do i care but this is shameful.I know for a fact that China hacked into Pentagon several times much less Indian Security System which would be inferior to Pentagon Security.Heck even Pakistani Hackers hacked your Indian Army officer PC so its no big deal for us but cyber space should be kept clean from all type of hackers - Indian Pakistani or any other.Pakistan has also cracked down hard on crackers if you are following the news and see the thread about hacking on this forum plenty of members are against it.

How you came to know china hacked into pentagon . What is hacking ? Pakistani hacked into PC of Indian army does not say hacker is genious . People are unaware of security issues and by simple tricks one can brek into systems . But to break into oranisation where security is properly appllied is difficult .

 

[Tshering22]

Typical reply as the post quoted was of a Pakistani.I don't think i will feel any threat from this nor do i care but this is shameful.I know for a fact that China hacked into Pentagon several times much less Indian Security System which would be inferior to Pentagon Security.Heck even Pakistani Hackers hacked your Indian Army officer PC so its no big deal for us but cyber space should be kept clean from all type of hackers - Indian Pakistani or any other.Pakistan has also cracked down hard on crackers if you are following the news and see the thread about hacking on this forum plenty of members are against it.

You know, We've been getting cyber attacks from you and Chinese without we having done anything in first place in cyber warfare. So any form of retaliation will be replied back in much more rapid attacks and cleaning off of critical data.

If there are any attacks, our hackers are capable of dealing and retaliating against them. For once our government has finally woken up to realize the threat from neighbourhood.