Showing posts with label Cyber security. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cyber security. Show all posts

Saturday, 29 November 2014

Indian cyber security violations similar to global trends: Minister

"The government has taken a slew of measures to tackle cyber security violations and cyber crimes in the country," Prasad said in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha.

"A total number of 23, 254, 552, 1,237, 2,565, 8,266, 10,315, 13,301, 22,060, 71,780 and 96,383 security incidents including phishing, scanning, spam, malicious code, website intrusions etc. were reported to the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) during the years 2004 to 2014 (till September), respectively," he said.

"During the years 2009 to 2014 (till September) a total no. of 11,831, 20,701, 21,699, 27,605, 28,481 and 14,151 Indian websites were also hacked by various hacker groups spread across worldwide," he said.

"The government has also initiated Information Security Education and Awareness (ISEA) project with the aim to develop human resource in the area of Information Security at various levels. Phase-I of the programme has been completed," Prasad informed the house.

He mentioned that all major websites are being monitored regularly to detect malicious activities.

"All central government ministries or departments and state or Union Territory governments have been advised to conduct security auditing of entire Information Technology infrastructure. All the new government websites and applications are to be audited with respect to cyber security prior to their hosting," the Minister said.

CERT-In has empanelled a total number of 45 security auditors to carry out security audit of the IT infrastructure of government, public and private sector organisations.

Mentioning that close watch is kept to scan malicious activities on the important networks in the government, public and service providers, the Minister said: "All the ministries/departments of central government and state governments have been asked to implement the crisis management plan to counter cyber attacks and cyber terrorism."

Source: News from Tech News

Friday, 31 October 2014

Expert claims hacking Xiaomi server, firm calls it hoax

"Chen Huang is an independent Taiwanese Security Expert. Session Abstract: In this session Taiwanese Researcher will demonstrate how Xiaomi Phones have been sending device data and personal data of Xiaomi Phone user to Chinese Servers," said the website of Ground Zero Summit.
   
"The Researcher will also release Server Logs, Mi Account username, Emails and passwords of millions of Xiaomi users which have been obtained using a Zero Day flaw in the Xiaomi Servers," the webpage added.

Xiaomi is now world's third largest smartphone maker after Samsung and Apple, as per the latest IDC report.
   
When contacted, Xiaomi' Head of India Operations Manu Jain said: "We have verified that the zero-day data breach allegation made by security researcher Chen Huang and the Ground Zero Summit organising committee reported by The Hacker News on October 30, 2014 is a hoax."
   
Jain said that the zero-day vulnerability reported by the cyber security researcher Chen Huang is a deliberate falsehood and Xiaomi is taking the necessary legal action against the parties involved.
   
Jain in his reply admitted that the company's user account file was leaked in May this year.
   
"To date, throughout Xiaomi's history, there has only been one incident in which a two-year-old user account file was leaked in May 2014," Jain said.
   
He said that leaked information was from user accounts registered before August 2012 in an old version of the Xiaomi user forum website.
   
Meanwhile, organisers of the summit, which is to be held here next month, said that they have put Cheng's session on hold till the time Xiaomi completes its investigations.
   
"Xiaomi representatives contacted and requested us regarding the session. We have decided to withhold session till the time Xiaomi investigates data breach and accusations and works with the researcher to fix it," Indian Infosec Consortium CEO Jiten Jain said.
   
The summit's website shows former chief of Indian Army and Minister of State for Development of North Eastern Region General VK Singh, Home Ministry Joint Secretary Nirmaljeet Singh Kalsi, Enforcement Directorate Special Director Karnail Singh and NTRO Director of Cyber Security Operations Alok Vijayant will be among key speakers.