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Hackers vandalise VSNL site
From: William Knowles <wk () C4I ORG>
Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2000 04:58:24 -0500
http://www1.hindustantimes.com/nonfram/170800/detFRO04.htm Thursday, August 17, 2000, New Delhi HACKERS, APPARENTLY owing allegiance to Pakistan, hacked the Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited (VSNL) site on Tuesday night and left behind crude messages of alleged Indian brutality. The defaced site read: "Doodh Nahi Piyoge to aisa he hoga" and "India celebrates its Independence Day and Kashmiris are still fighting for freedom.". The VSNL site was hacked late on Tuesday evening. VSNL authorities removed the offending messages the following day. "I would not say that the VSNL site was hacked. What the hackers did was that they added one additional page to the VSNL site", said Mr. Amitabh Kumar, Director (Operations) of the VSNL. The messages left by the hackers were crude and one of the message recounted in gory detail an alleged incident of Army brutality on April 27 jawans in the Handwara area of J&K. After giving out the details, the hacker exhorted "idiots" to await the second part of the story. Thrilled with the fact that they managed to deface the site, the hackers left juvenile messages like "VSNL, may you have an unhappy Independence Day". Mr. Amitabh Kumar said that the VSNL had taken all precautions it could. "We have had security precautions like firewall and other such devices. But under some circumstances, people can access the site" said Mr. Kumar. He denied that the VSNL had anticipated such an attack. "The VSNL site is under attack all the time. We take all precautions to the extent we can. For August 15 we had taken special precautions," said Mr. Kumar. He pointed out that the hackers had gained access to the VSNL site and managed to deface it for "only a little time" on Tuesday night. Pak hackers had hacked the National Infomatics Centre site on June 6, 99. Even then, the NIC was not even aware that its site, http:\\asm.nic.in, had been hacked and that India had been abused in the foulest language on the site. Mr Prashant Deorah of Purtech Internet Private Limited, which has worked on some aspects of the VSNL site, said, "Yes, normal precautions like firewall coupled with software and hardware support have to be taken. But I agree that on important days like Independence Day, special measures need to be taken. *==============================================================* "Communications without intelligence is noise; Intelligence without communications is irrelevant." Gen Alfred. M. Gray, USMC ================================================================ C4I.org - Computer Security, & Intelligence - http://www.c4i.org *==============================================================* ISN is hosted by SecurityFocus.com --- To unsubscribe email LISTSERV () SecurityFocus com with a message body of "SIGNOFF ISN".
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- Hackers vandalise VSNL site William Knowles (Aug 18)