Threat of Cyber Attacks is Real

Threat of Cyber Attacks is Real

Do you know that the cypher attacks have now emerged as deadlier  weapons, more dangerous than the traditional one. They are capable of crippling enemy’s economy without firing any weapon on its border. And such danger from our traditional enemies is real. The impact of the cyber-attack can be classified:

Physical/Digital, Economic, Psychological, Reputational, Social/societal . 

Under the Physical/Digital category , there is possibility of the loss of human life by manipulating the flow of water in dams, disruption in water supply and electricity, damage to vital infrastructure or assets . While the economic impacts include a fall in stock price, stealing vital data of financial institutions or reduced profits . Psychological impacts are also serious, individuals can be left depressed, embarrassed, shamed or confused , while Reputational impacts can include a loss of key staff, damaged relationships with customers and intense media scrutiny. 

The signals of such attacks can be gathered from the dark web. So before moving further, first we need to understand the dark web . Whatever is happening on the Internet below the upper layer is called dark web or dark net. Let me further simplify: You already know about websites like Google, Amazon, YouTube, Facebook, Corporte sites, Government sites as well as the media sites. But they’re only a small part of the internet. Beyond those popular websites are sites hidden away and not readily visible to the general public. That space is where the Dark Web and the Deep Web exist.

To elaborate further , the Dark Web, or Darknet, is a general term for a collection of websites on an encrypted network with hidden IP addresses – all of which gives users strong anonymity protection. Because they are not indexed by traditional search engines, you can only access them with special anonymity browsers, such as I2P, Freenet, and the most common, The Onion Router (TOR) bundle. These are mostly known for nefarious activities, intelligence , counter intelligence activities . It is utmost important for the government machinery to monitor the signals emitting out of dark net to understand what is cooking against it by hostile governments or the hackers controlled by them. 

If the media reports are to be believed than the smoke signals on dark net are already there about something  fishy, the hackers are active and sites of several government agencies, media houses, pharma companies, telecom operators and a large tyre company in India may be their targets.  Cyber intelligence firm Cyfirma has also warned, citing recent chatter on dark web forums. According to Cyfirma, around 12 days ago, hacker forums in Mandarin and Cantonese started talking on the dark web that was not indexed by search engines about teaching India a lesson, especially media houses that have been critical of the Chinese army .

It cites , “What piqued our interest was the list published on these forums. They had names of several Indian companies, media houses, telecom operators and a large tyre company. When we started attributing the handles publishing these lists back to their sources, we found that they belonged to Gothic Panda and Stone Panda, two well-known hacking groups with direct affiliation to the PLA (People’s Liberation Army). CERT-In (Computer Emergency Response Team), India’s nodal agency for cyberattacks, and some of the firms whose names were on

the list. According to Cyfirma,

the list includes MRF Tyres,

Airtel, BSNL, Sun Pharmaceutical, Cipla, Reliance Jio, Hindustan Times, Times of India and Republic TV.

“These two hacker groups have a his- tory of launching cyberattacks against government agencies and competing companies in case of any geopolitical conflict with China,” it is said.

Active for more than a decade, hacker group Gothic Panda has been involved in large-scale cyberattacks targeting organizations in the US and Hong Kong.

State-backed cyberattacks have become a common weapon of retaliation for not only China but the other powerful countries that do not want to get into physical wars.

Chinese hackers have a record to make attempts of stealing  vital information from various countries. A Chinese cyber-espionage group had used NSA malware more than a year before the Shadow Brokers leaked the same exploits online, exposing them to the whole world, according to US cyber-security firm Symantec. The group tracked by cyber-security vendors under names such as Buckeye, APT3, Gothic Panda, TG-011, and UPS-- is infamous after US authorities charged three hackers in late 2017.  

The US has alleged in the past that the three men were behind a cyber-security company named Boyusec that was acting as a front for the Chinese Ministry of State Security and had hacked western companies such as Moody's Analytics, Siemens, and Trimble. It was Symantec who discovered and exposed the group , it had fair evidence that the same group had also used NSA-developed malware long before the same malware became widely available to anyone.

In the recent past, Chinese hacker groups were suspected to launch a series of cyberattacks against Australian organizations in retaliation against Australia’s decision to back an investigation into the origins of covid-19.

Australian entities, including those run by the government and essential service providers, have been targeted by a series of state-backed cyberattacks in May this year , the Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison is on record to inform the media.

India has also been in the line of fire of Pakistan-backed cyber attacks. After the abrogation of Article 370, cyberattacks on Indian institutions increased, with many of the attackers openly acknowledging their allegiance to Pakistan.

The Ministry of Electronics and Technology informed the Rajya Sabha while replying to a question on March 6, 2020,  China and Pakistan have been found to be behind several cyber attacks by hacking into Indian websites by breaking their security systems. The attacks have posed to be a great cyber threat. In the last five years, as many as 1,29,747 Indian websites have been hacked,. CERT-In informed Parliament that over 24 websites related to central ministries and state governments were hacked till May. 

In November last year , a malware was found on one of the systems of Nuclear Power Corporation of India’s Kudankulam plant. The malware was designed for data extraction and was linked to the Lazarus Group, which is

known to have ties to North Korea.

So the threat is real, the government of India should rope up services of ethical hackers , apart from taking other corrective measures,  to counter this serious threat by hackers from hostile countries.