Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Terror group hijacks Wi-Fi connections

Email from a terrorist group, Indian Mujahideen, has been traced to a college in Mumbai. The email hinted at new terror attacks and warned that suicide bombers would be deployed. As a result, city colleges are working to eliminate the threat posed by unsecured Internet and Wi-Fi connections

A similar email was sent prior to serial bomb blasts in the west Indian city of Ahemdabad on July 26, 2008, which killed 42 people. That email was sent via a hacked computer with an unsecure Wi-Fi connection in a private Mumbai residence, and appears to be the first time that a local IP address has been hacked by terrorists.

See, "Second terror e-mail traced to Mumbai college," Morung Express, Aug. 25, 2008; "Colleges wake up to wi-fi threat," Hindustan Times, Aug. 26, 2008, at http://www.hindustantimes.com/storypage/storypage.aspx?sectionName=&id=a8603558-e1d6-46fe-a7a8-c614fca6685b&&Headline=Colleges+wake+up+to+wi-fi+threat&strParent=strParentID; "American expats caught up in Indian bomb blast inquiry," Guardian, July 29, 2008, at http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/29/india.terrorism; and, "Anyone can be caught in the web of terror," Times of India, July 29, 2008, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Mumbai/Anyone_can_be_caught_in_the_web_of_terror/articleshow/3299793.cms

3 comments:

LNAV Editor said...

The law enforcement machinery is currently struggling hard to deal with hi-tech crimes and modern cyber crimes. Even the traditional crimes, including terrorism, have taken new shapes by using Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for perpetuation of these crimes. The problem arises when the law enforcement uses and applies the “tradition investigation and prosecution methods” to these hi-tech crimes in India.

According to Praveen Dalal, the Leading Techno-Legal ICT, Cyber Law, Cyber Security and Cyber Forensics Specialist of India, “The terms like Media Access Control (MAC) address, Service Set Identifier (SSID), etc may be scary for the law enforcement official in India but they must get themselves acquainted with them as soon as possible. This is because hi-tech crimes involving and using integrated circuits and Internet would be the future cyber crimes trend in India. There is inadequate cyber security in India particularly for the wireless networks. This makes “wireless hacking” possible and that is often used for committing cyber crimes and other purposes. Wireless hacking is, generally, a four step process that includes wardriving, victim identification, passwords and encryption keys sniffing and finally hacking. If MAC filtering is in place the offender may go for the MAC address spoofing to trick the authentication process. Even an access point (AP) can be spoofed and a rouge AP may pretend to be a legitimate one by using the same configurations, SSID settings or network name”.

LNAV Editor said...

Dear Readers.

We are in the process of building a “National Consensus” on the vital National Issues like enactment of a sound and safer cyber law in India, establishment and development of effective cyber forensics capabilities in India, giving attention towards cyber security in India, establishment of e-courts in India, etc. All of you are requested to send their views, comments, suggestions, etc to Mr. Praveen Dalal at perry4law@yahoo.com and pd37@rediffmail.com through e-mails. All the contributions would be duly acknowledged and every effort would be made to incorporate the same in the “Final Draft” that would be sent to the Government of India, Department of Information Technology, Department of Science and Technology, Prime Minister’s Office, President’s Office, etc. We respect privacy of our viewers and friends and will not divulge the e-mails and other details, including surnames, of our friends, unless expressly requested by them.

LNAV Editor said...

WORKING GROUP ON CYBER LAW IN INDIA

Dear Sir/Madam

We are in the process of constituting a Working Group on Cyber Law in India headed by Mr. Praveen Dalal, the Leading Techno-Legal ICT, Cyber Law, Cyber Security and Cyber Forensics Specialist of India. The same would consist of leading Organisations, Institutions, Industrial and Professional Bodies, Members of Civil Society and NGOs, Governmental Representatives, Lawyers, Judges, etc who have sound knowledge and expertise in the field of Information and Communication Technology. The interested persons or institutions are requested to join us and contact us as soon as possible as there would be limited number of members of this group. Kindly contact us at editorlnav at rediffmail dot com and perry4law at yahoo dot com in this regard with relevant particulars and details.

Kindly see http://legalnewsandviews.blogspot.com/ for more details and forward this information to others as well.

Regards

Editor
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