Kerala:  Cyber attacks on Dec 31?
By Kerala IT News

Recently, many sites related to Kerala were attacked. As per the statistics available with the Computer Emergency Response Team Kerala (CERT-K), as many as 40 websites from Kerala were hacked in the last 6 weeks. Random messages on social networking sites hint at the possibility of further attacks by Dec 31, 2010. CERT experts are working full time to secure websites in Kerala.

Realising the need to strengthen security incident response as well as to take proper proactive steps, the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) sent three of their experts to Kerala to share their knowledge and experience with the officials here to ensure cyber safety and security. Accordingly, CERT-K in association with the Kerala State IT Mission (KSITM) organised a workshop on ‘Security Incident Response’ on December 29 for System Developers and Administrators of various Government Departments at the Institute of Management in Government (IMG) in Trivandrum.

Hacking Methodology and Detection of attacks and Trends in Artifact analysis were some of the topics that were handled by the experts from CERT-In. Specific guidelines from CERT-In for incidence response were also discussed during the session. This half day event was a follow-up to the workshop on ‘Application Security Risks’ held last week which was attended by over 100 participants from various Government Departments, autonomous institutions and IT companies.

CERT-In is the national nodal agency under the Department of IT (Ministry of Communications & IT, Government of India) for responding to computer security incidents pertaining to the Indian Cyber Space.

(In Techgoss syndication arrangement with Keralaitnews.com)

(Techgoss had published the following on Dec 23, 2010)

Kerala sites under cyber attack
By Kerala IT News

About 40 websites from Kerala, mostly Government sites, have been hacked in the last six weeks with as many as 17 being hacked on a single day earlier this week. While most of these are sites with .gov extension, .com sites with Kerala in the domain name have also being targeted. Most of these Government websites were subject to frontpage defacement with minimal damage to data.

But there are some instances of massive damage to the databases. While most of these hacked websites have been recovered successfully, some are yet to be restored. According to sources, four of the websites that were hacked last week are not yet up. This includes a District website of Kerala Police.

At a workshop on Web Security organised by the Kerala State IT Mission (KSITM) and the Computer Emergency Response Team Kerala (CERT-K), N Krishnan, Director, CERT-K said, “We need to investigate why Kerala is being targeted. What is alarming is that there seems to be a concerted effort from beyond the borders of our country in these attacks.” A search on the Internet reveals that surprisingly there were discussions and prior intimations about these hackings on Social Networking websites and forums frequented by these Cyber hackers.
 
According to the data available with the Hitech Cell of Kerala Police and the Computer Emergency Response Team Kerala (CERT-K), the origins of these attacks have been traced to IPs located outside the country. This restricts the investigation process and also the prosecution of culprits. Spoofing of IPs and proxy IPs complicates the matter more.

The workshop deliberated on the Information Security practices and policies of KSITM being followed at the State Data Centre. Resource persons from CERT-K and RCom led the sessions on implementing and enhancing the security of websites. Steps to be taken to prevent cyber attacks and steps to be taken after an attack were also discussed. About 100 delegates, mostly from various Government Departments and Organisations, and also IT Professionals from Technopark participated in the day long workshop.