Government websites being targeted due to laxity in security
Dr. Harold Costa,
CEO, Intelligent Quotient Security System,
Sr. Consultant &Trainer (Maharashtra & Goa Police)
The recent flurry of attacks on Government websites has raised suspicion over the security being provided to protect the system. If we go through the available data in India, it has been found that the government websites are being targeted because of the laxity in the security.
In 2009, a website of a famous company in Maharashtra was compromised, hacked and pornographic contents were uploaded onto it. A client of the company reported the matter to them; a police complaint was registered and the police questioned the company as to why no security measures were being implanted in the system. Instead of finding out the perpetrators of the crime, the company was made accountable for the security lapses and an offence was registered against them.
A website of a prestigious University was hacked and pornographic content were uploaded. 72 pages of this website was vandalized with videos and contents obscene in nature. The university came to know that its website was hacked when one of the students who wanted to get admission for a course was shocked to view the pages. The university made the website offline, removed the Vandalized pages and restored the website. The whole process of restoration took a week, till that time the students were at the receiving end and had to face the brunt, for the laxity in security. The Vice Chancellor of the University called on me to trace out the perpetrator of the Crime. I was perplexed when I found that the website was not provided with any security mechanism. The reason for the website being compromised was an official, working in the examination department, who was in charge of uploading the results. The system he used for uploading lacked security. There was no proper firewall, antivirus installed in the system and as a result of which the contents he uploaded caught the eye of a malware, which was already present in the system.
A prestigious agriculture university in Maharashtra was in the news when the students were shocked that a pornographic racket was being run through it; a student called the university officials and informed them. The university officials were shocked to hear this and upon accessing the website they saw it was indeed vandalized.
I was called upon by the cops and within 48 hours we found the perpetrator of the crime sitting in Chandigarh. The cops went to Chandigarh and got hold of this 24-year-old youth. When he was questioned by the police he informed that he was hired by an UK based company to develop this website and hence was not responsible for the content, but the point still remains that the domain was registered in his name and hence he was the owner and accountable for it.When he was deposed in front of the magistrate, he was granted bail. The youth on getting bail asked his lawyer to speak to the university officials and pressurize them that if they don’t take the complaint back then he may contemplate suicide for which the university officials would be responsible. What happened later is a by gone history and the accused is free from the clutches of the law.
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