India Hacked: Part I - The Extent of the Compromise

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

http://www.theindiasite.com/india-hacked-part-i/

By Ulrik McKnight
The India Site
Sep 14, 2011

Since 2009 there has been repeated evidence of severe hacking of Indian 
government and military organizations, industries, and even journalists’ 
email accounts. The evidence shows successful long-term cyber-attacks 
and cyber-espionage, with strong indications that nation states are 
involved.

The list of compromised Indian targets reads like a spy’s fantasy: TATA, 
DLF, the National Security Council Secretariat, Indian embassies around 
the world, the Air Force Station at Race Course Road, the Army Institute 
of Technology, the Institute for Defence Studies and Analysis, prominent 
journalists and academics writing on Kashmir, and many more.

Confidential materials have poured out of India like water from a bucket 
full of holes.

  March 2009: Researchers at the Munk Centre for International
  Studies, University of Toronto and the SecDev Group in Canada
  conducted an investigation into cyber attacks called Tracking
  Ghostnet: Investigating a Cyber Espionage Network. They found a
  global network of compromised computers of high-value targets.
  This included abouta dozen compromised India-related targets,
  including the National Informatics Centre, Indian embassies
  around the globe, the Tibetan Government-in-Exile and the private
  office of the Dalai Lama. They called their report a “wake-up call”.

  April 2010: The same researchers released a follow-up report, Shadow
  in the Clouds: Investigating Cyber Espionage 2.0, after hacking the
  hackers they were investigating.  They managed to gain access to
  some of the documents the hackers had pulled out of infected
  computers. Astonishingly, they found 13 Indian government documents
  classified as Secret, Restricted or Confidential. China was viewed
  as the most likely culprit.

  July 2011: Evidence emerged suggesting the Italian cyberpolice, the
  National Anti-Crime Computer Centre for Critical Infrastructure
  Protection, had hacked one or more Indian embassies and stolen
  documents relating to defence deals.

  August 2011: The computer security company McAfee released Revealed:
  Operation Shady RAT, a report indicating, amongst other things, that
  they had found an Indian government agency to have been hacked.

[...]

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