India Confronting Continuous Cyber Assaults

According to S. Gopalkrishnan, CEO and Managing Director, Infosys, India's cyber programs are being constantly interfered by various external forces, or in other words, the country is facing continued cyber attacks from the external forces, reported topnews.in on July 4, 2010.

Delivering a speech on "Future of IT in Modern Warfare in Context of Cyber Security" at the College of Defense Management (CDM), Secunderabad, India, he cautioned that these cyber assaults pose a big risk to the safety and security of India.

Gopalkrishnan said that India suffered serious cyber attacks in April 2010. Although the identity and motive of these attacks are still unknown, a report indicates that these were masterminded by China. Such attacks are a big threat to a nation's security. These attacks do not require much resources as just a capable team of hackers can accomplish the task, reported expressbuzz.com on July 4, 2010.

Attacks on government departments and companies have become commonplace, Gopalkrishnan noted. Hackers can easily take hold of confidential data through hacking or implanting a virus on network and establishing full control over it. Although hackers are not violent, these actions can cause severe damages, he said.

It is noteworthy that the views of Gopalkrishnan regarding India's security were also a topic of discussion at a meeting held at the Prime Minister's Office on July 2, 2010. It was highlighted at the meeting that there's a high risk of India's power installations facing attacks from Internet hackers. It was also decided to create an inter-ministry unit to outline a plan for protecting power grids as well as installations across the country.

The meeting also underlined that due to high dependency of newer facilities on computer managed systems which could be easily attacked by an implanted malware, these facilities are more vulnerable to cyber attacks.

Power Ministry Officials said that malware intrusion into the IT infrastructure that supports and manages a power plant, or an online assault on its distribution network can cause black out in several parts of the country at some crucial juncture; it can even cause destruction of infrastructure, reported telegraphindia.com on July 5, 2010.

Related article: India Remains an Easy Target for Hackers in '06

» SPAMfighter News - 7/14/2010