China’s cyber warfare army is marching on, and India is suffering
silently. China had mounted almost daily attacks on Indian computer
networks, both government and private, showing its intent and
capability.
The sustained assault almost coincides with the history
of the present political disquiet between the two countries. According
to senior government officials, these attacks are not isolated
incidents of something so generic or basic as "hacking" — they are far
more sophisticated and complete — and there is a method behind the
madness.
Publicly, senior government officials, when questioned,
take refuge under the argument that "hacking" is a routine activity and
happens from many areas around the world. But privately, they
acknowledge that the cyber warfare threat from China is more real than
from other countries.
The core of the assault is that the Chinese
are constantly scanning and mapping India’s official networks. This
gives them a very good idea of not only the content but also of how to
disable the networks or distract them during a conflict.
This, officials say, is China’s way of gaining "an asymmetrical advantage" over a potential adversary.
The big attacks that were sourced to China over the last few months
included an attack on NIC (National Infomatics Centre), which was aimed
at the National Security Council, and on the MEA.
Other government
networks, said sources, are routinely targeted though they haven’t been
disabled. A quiet effort is under way to set up defence mechanisms, but
cyber warfare is yet to become a big component of India’s security
doctrine. Dedicated teams of officials — all underpaid, of course — are
involved in a daily deflection of attacks. But the real gap is that a
retaliatory offensive system is yet to be created.
And it’s not difficult, said sources. Chinese networks are very porous — and India is an acknowledged IT giant!
There are three main weapons in use against Indian networks — BOTS, key
loggers and mapping of networks. According to sources in the
government, Chinese hackers are acknowledged experts in setting up
BOTS. A BOT is a parasite program embedded in a network, which hijacks
the network and makes other computers act according to its wishes,
which, in turn, are controlled by "external" forces.
The controlled
computers are known as "zombies" in the colourful language of cyber
security, and are a key aspect in cyber warfare. According to official
sources, there are close to 50,000 BOTS in India at present — and these
are "operational" figures.
What is the danger? Simply put, the
danger is that at the appointed time, these "external" controllers of
BOTNETS will command the networks, through the zombies, to move them at
will.
Exactly a year ago, Indian computer security experts got a
glimpse of what could happen when a targeted attack against Estonia
shut that country down — it was done by one million computers from
different parts of the world — and many of them were from India! That,
officials said, was executed by cyber terrorists from Russia, who are
deemed to be more deadlier.
The point that officials are making is
that there are internal networks in India that are controlled from
outside — a sort of cyberspace fifth column. Hence, the need for a more
aggressive strategy.
