Why was Vijay Mallya hacked?

Hackers from India, Pakistan in all out war in cyberspace

While you were enjoying the Independence Day spirit and probably flying kites, an all out war was on between India and Pakistan.


It's war: Webshots of the pics posted by hackers from India (top)u00a0and
(below)u00a0Pakistan on sites targeted on August 14 and 15.

Fortunately, it was not on the border but in cyberspace where hackers from the two countries were engaged in pitched battles to outdo each other.

According to cyber experts, more than a thousand websites were hacked into and defaced on August 14 and 15 when Pakistan and India celebrated their Independence respectively. The Day came as a nightmare for some of the webmasters website owners from the two nations. Pakistani hackers were first to strike on August 14 when they defaced Indian websites. The Indian side returned fire the following day.



Hackers from both the nations hacked the websites and posted flags of the respective countries on the targeted websites.

Two Pakistani groups Pak Cyber Army and PakHaxors started the attack. As per zone-h data, these groups have defaced around 10-20 websites. The counter attack from the Indian side was led by Indishell and Indian Cyber Army who claim to have defaced 1,226 Pakistani websites. Zone-h data confirms the figure is more than 1,000 website.

In retaliation the Pakistani hackers intensified the volume and nature of the attack resulting in the hacking of the website of UB group chairman and Rajya Sabha MP Vijay Mallya.

"This is a payback from Pak Cyber Army in return to the defacements of Pakistani sites! You are playing with fire!, This is not a game kids. We are warning you one last time, don't think that you are secure in this Cyber Space. We will turn your Cyber Space into Hell," the hacked site read.

Cyber crime expert says that date of historic importance always see an increase in attacks. "We have seen volume of attack increasing during Independence Day and Republic Day. Now hackers have started expressing their rage on 7/11 and 26/11 too. Zone-h site where hackers post hacked website screenshots shows more than 1000 websites," said Sunny Vaghela, a renowned cyber crime expert.

Another Delhi-based cyber crime expert Vivek Vohra said, "Hackers make merry at the cost of website owners. A number of websites are hacked but most go unreported. There will be many Indian and Pakistani groups who are involved in this but the Indian side is mainly represented by ICW (Indian cyber warriors), ICA (Indian Cyber Army) and HMG (Hindu Militant Group) and Indishell. PCA (Pakistan Cyber Army), Pakbugs and Pakhaxors lead the Pakistani side," Vohra pointed out.

New-age solutions
With cyber criminals adopting newer ways of attacking consumers and corporates via social networking sites, security solutions need to evolve from just providing anti-virus protection, software maker Symantec has said.
According to a study, in 2009 Indian enterprises lost Rs 58 lakh to cyber attacks. This is set to increase further if companies do not take appropriate measures to protect themselves from various threats that lead to not just financial setbacks but also loss of crucial data.
Cyber criminals are using various means such as social networking and posting malicious links in instant messengers (IMs) along with spam mails. With the increasing popularity of social networking sites, Symantec expects frauds against site users to grow as well.