Government mulls making exchange of information in the cyberspace terror-proof
Government mulls making exchange of information in the cyberspace terror-proof
Alarmed over the rising use of Internet-based services in the recent terror attacks, the Central government is planning to put in place a mechanism to monitor the incoming and outgoing cyber traffic in the country.
MiD DAY learnt that the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has initiated steps to keep a guarding eye over the the Indian cyber space as well as various Internet-based services like e-mails, Internet telephony etc. "Services like voice over Internet protocol (VoIP), e-mails etc had been used widely by various terrorist groups to communicate, facilitate and launch attacks in the country. It also enabled them to talk to their masters sitting outside the country," said an senior MHA officer.
He elaborated that the government has asked all the agencies concerned to devise methods to monitor the cyber traffic passing through various servers across the country. "It's a tedious job but it can not be ignored for long as terrorists have been using it to their advantage. There cannot be a blanket ban over these services but off course there has to be strict monitoring," the officer said.
Cyber crime expert Sunny Vaghela said, "Terrorists who attacked Mumbai exploited the immense potential of VoIP to their advantage. India would soon become home to several VoIP service providers and we will get to see more VoIP usage.u00a0 Through VoIP one can also spoof calls, enabling the caller to remain unidentified while showing that the call is being routed from several places."
"Calls made from VoIP can be can be routed from servers of several countries, making it difficult to be traced. Similarly, just like an e-mail one can make calls from proxy servers that are almost impossible to trace. Security agencies should be prepared handle such eventualities. They must have a mechanism to filter the calls and log details of all VoIP calls," Vaghela added.
Delhi-based ethical hacker Vivek Vohra said spammers would also use VoIP to send spam mails freely which would be very difficult to trace. "These e-mails consist mainly of online sales calls. Though spamming in VoIP is not common yet, but it is fast picking up, especially with the emergence of VoIP."
Every VoIP account has an associated IP address. Spammers send infected messages (voicemails) to thousands of IP addresses at one go. Voice mailing may suffer as a fallout because it will clog space for voicemails. Moreover, spam messages carry viruses and spyware. With the transmission of VoIP not secured, a trained professional can easily access personal identification number (PIN) of phone banking services seriously jeopardising accounts of thousands of customers. Many vendors run VoIP without any encryption which can be dangerous," he added.
Because VoIP relies on an Internet connection, it is vulnerable to every threat or problem that your computer encounters. The technology is still new to India, therefore there are doubts over how potent it would prove for launching a cyberu00a0attack, but VoIP makes telephone vulnerable to viruses.
Attackers may be able to intercept communications, eaves-drop, launch phishing attacks by manipulating your caller ID and causing your service to crash.
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