Is India a Potential Target of Cyber Terrorism?

  India has been fighting with different type of terror attack for the last three decades. Now, terrorists have also invaded India in the cyberspace. Many security experts think that India is now on the cybercriminals’ hit list. India ranks fourth behind US, China and Japan in terms of internet users. Although, 7 % Indian have access to the internet, the Internet user score went up by 1520 % between 2000 and 2009.

McAfee India’s technical product manager Vinoo Thomas said that Cybercriminals today keep an eye on what keywords users mostly search now a days and based upon that they develop viruses, spams, phishing emails and botnets.

“Malware authors make use of breaking news or popular search terms to ensure a higher return on investment. Popular news searches such as Micheal Jackson’s death, Benazir Bhutto’s assassination, Bangalore blasts, Indian celebrities and cricketers are misused by malware writers,” Thomas stated.

Many top Indian sites are attacked by malware or viruses including banks, security vendors, portals, businesses, educational and government sites. Indian banks and financial institutions are the latest victims by attacker due to the rise of e-commerce and m-banking. Visa and mastercard is already running security awareness campaign in India.

Besides, malware are now localized using India-specific themes with auto-run worms via flash drives. So, even though users restrict downloading and only use the internet for surfing, still those machines get infected. Then those infected machines starts to corrupt other machines by sending spam emails and malware. Many net users from BSNL, MTNL, Airtel, Reliance, Tata and other service providers are the victim of notorious Conficker worm. The worm has already infected millions of computers around the world.

Thomas also highlights that the security risk is continuously changing. If one site is safe today, it may be risky next day.