Indian IT industry a target for militants

India's multi-billion-dollar IT software industry is a target for attacks by militant groups, a top home ministry official warned Wednesday.

"We are world leaders in software," Gopal Pillai, India's home secretary told a conference on the "Challenge of Terrorism to India's Infrastructure and Economy" in New Delhi.

"The software industry is high on the threat list and all companies in India are now realising this and they are taking their own measures to see how best they can provide security," he said. government was helping IT firms meet the security challenge, he added. At the end of July, 101 federal troops began guarding the headquarters of IT leader Infosys in the southern city of Bangalore.

The group agreed to pay around 25.6 million rupees (S$762,880) a year, according to reports.

The cities of Bangalore and Hyderabad, another IT hub, have been targeted with bombings in the past. At least two people were killed and seven injured last July when Bangalore was rocked by seven explosions.

And in 2007, 43 people were killed in twin attacks on an outdoor auditorium and an famous eatery in Hyderabad.

India has been on alert since last November's Mumbai attacks in which 166 people were killed when 10 gunmen targeted a string of locations in the country's financial and entertainment capital.

According to the National Association of Software and Service Companies, or Nasscom, India's top outsourcing body, the sector's export revenues are expected to be 50 billion dollars this financial year to March 2009.

Prosecution concludes case in Mumbai terrorism trial

The prosecution Wednesday concluded its case in the Mumbai terrorism trial as the special court said it would record the statement of the sole surviving Pakistani gunman soon.

The prosecution completed presenting evidence from 610 witnesses against Ajmal Kasab and two Indian defendants, Faheem Ansari and Sabauddin Ahmed, special prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam said outside the special court in Mumbai.

'The trial began May 8 and in about seven months the prosecution today closed the case,' Nikam was quoted by the PTI news agency as saying.

Special Judge ML Tahilyani said the court would record Kasab's statement Friday.

Kasab, a militant from the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) outfit, faces 86 charges ranging from waging war on India to murder, kidnapping and destabilizing the government. If convicted, he could be sentenced to death.

The prosecution's aim was not only to prove the case against Kasab, but also expose the prime conspirators from the LeT, Nikam said.

'Kasab is one of the instruments of the terrorist outfit. He and the nine other slain terrorists were a small part of LeT which wanted to inflict serious damage to India by attacking its commercial capital,' the prosecutor said.

The charges allege key planners of the assaults included LeT leaders Hafiz Saeed, Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi and Zarar Shah.

The attacks damaged relations between the two South Asian nuclear neighbours India and Pakistan and derailed a five-year peace process.

Local media reported that a verdict in the case is expected early next year.

Kasab initially denied the charges, but in a dramatic confession in July admitted to his role in the bloodbath and asked to be hanged. His request was not accepted and the trial continued.

According to the prosecution, Kasab was arrested early November 27 last year, the morning after he and nine other terrorists landed in Mumbai by boat from Karachi and launched the attacks.

The terrorists struck with explosives and rifle fire at 13 places - including two hotels, a train station, a cafe and Jewish centre - and by the time the siege ended three days later, at least 166 people, including 26 foreign nationals, were dead.

Cyber terrorism next big threat to India: Cyber security Whizkid

Nov 24 (IANS) Pakistani cyber criminals deface nearly 60 Indian websites every day, says celebrity cyber security expert Ankit Fadia, adding that cyber terrorism is the biggest threat India is facing today.
“The next big war that the country may have to wage against terror will be on the Internet. The network infrastructure of the country may be attacked any time.Social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, Orkut and Myspace may also pose a threat,” Fadia told IANS in an e-mail interview.

Fadia, 24, is considered “one of the best and the youngest ethical hackers in the country”.

He is an authority on computer security systems and digital intelligence. The computer whizkid, who at the age of 16 cracked an encrypted al Qaeda mail for an intelligence agency soon after the Sep 11 attacks, has a degree in information security from Stanford University in the US.

He advises top-of-the-chain global MNCs, the Singapore government and Indian police forces in network security and digital upgrades, and hosts a television show on ethical hacking.

“Pakistani cyber criminals deface nearly 60 Indian websites a day, but in return only 10 to 15 Pakistani websites are defaced. It has been going on since 2001. India may be the IT capital of the world, but as far as security issues are concerned the country is lagging far behind,” Fadia said.

“Most countries have been victims of cyber terrorim some time or the other. Since 2000-01, Pakistani criminals have been defacing Indian websites and writing derogatory messages against India. It is known as Hacktivism, hacking into websites to spread a political, social or economic cause.”

Fadia, who was working with the Central Bureau of Investigation till a couple of years ago, said: “As more and more aspects of our lives are now online, the danger of cyber terrorism is only rising.”

Terrorists are now using “VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) chats, hidden messages inside photographs, draft e-mails and encrypted pen drives to communicate across the world, he said.

After the Mumbai terror attacks last year, Fadia worked with the police “to decode various VoIP messages that the terrorists passed on using various VoIP software (Skype and Google Talk) before the attacks to plan the strike.

“The police had also found various e-mails that were sent by the terrorists. I worked with the police to trace the e-mails back to the source and determine the exact geographic locations of the terrorists.”

Fadia said: “At that time, India needed proof that the terrorists had indeed come from Pakistan. However, the initial e-mail trace revealed that the mails were sent from Saudi Arabia and Russia. After further investigation, we realised that the mails were sent from Pakistan and the terrorists had used proxy servers to disguise their locations.”

For the past couple of months, the security expert has been “working on a project on how social networking websites are the next big threat for individuals. I am also writing a book on spies, hacking and national security,” he said.

According to Fadia, cyber laws in India may be quite good, “but the problem is that the police who enforce those laws are not trained properly. If anyone lodges a cyber crime complaint at the nearest police station, I am sure that nine out of 10 times, officials attending to you won’t even know what you are saying.”

The threat of terrorism has “sort of legitimised the demand and the necessity for ethical hacking”, Fadia felt. “Especially after the Mumbai attacks, everyone realised the need for ethical hacking. An ethical hacker determines the various security loopholes in a company’s network and comes up with protection mechanisms to fix them.

“It is like hiring a criminal to break into your house and then asking the criminal to suggest ways to prevent a real break-in from taking place.”

Fadia wrote “The Unofficial Guide to Ethical Hacking” when he was just 14. It became an international bestseller, sold over three million copies and was translated into 11 languages.

Fadia said: “According to NASSCOM-IDC surveys the demand for ethical hackers is estimated at 77,000 in India and 188,000 worldwide currently.” He has trained more than 15,000 executives in systems security.

Fadia got his first computer when he was 10.

“At 12, I suddenly developed an interest in computer hacking. The fact that it was illegal attracted me. I hacked into the database of my favourite Chip magazine at 13. I defaced the magazine website and put up my website instead. But I wrote to the editor of the magazine and told him what I had done and how he could fix the security loophole so that such incidents don’t happen again. The editor offered me a job.”

Cyber Terrorism In India Is A National Security Hazard

Cyber law of India has covered a long distance. It has covered a journey from Informationn Technology Act, 2000 (IT Act, 2000) to the Information Technology Amendment Act 2008 (IT Act 2008).

Just like any other technology law, the IT Act, 2000 is also far from perfect. Also with the passage of time, new provisions must be incorporated to address the issues of cyber crimes and online transactions.

One such issue that has not received proper attention of the government of India (GOI) pertains to cyber terrorism in India.

Cyberterrorism is defined by Kevin G. Coleman as “The premeditated use of disruptive activities, or the threat thereof, against computers and/or networks, with the intention to cause harm or further social, ideological, religious, political or similar objectives. Or to intimidate any person in furtherance of such objectives.

Cyber Terrorism in India was first discussed and advocated in the year 2002 by Praveen Dalal, the leading Techno-Legal Expert of India and Managing Partner of Perry4Law.

However, the GOI woke up very late in the year 2008 when a single provision was incorporated in the Information Technology Amendment Act 2008 (IT Act 2008) on the basis of suggestions of Praveen Dalal.

Though the provision seems to be a good beginning yet there is still a long gap to cover as a single provision cannot be considered to be enough to address the menace of cyber terrorism in India.

It would be a good idea if the GOI take a serious note of the existing cyber law of India and come up with good and effective amendments.

Alleged Terrorism Plotter David Headley

The mantra long invoked to justify American military engagement in Afghanistan and Iraq — we're fighting extremists there so we don't have to fight them here — has taken a beating of late. In September came the arrest of Najibullah Zazi, the Colorado man accused of plotting perhaps the gravest U.S. terrorist attack since 9/11. November saw Major Nidal Malik Hasangun down 13 people — including 12 of his fellow U.S. soldiers — at Ford Hood, Texas, in the deadliest assault on a military base in U.S. history. The latest blow came Dec. 7, when the U.S. Justice Department filed new charges against David Headley, 49, an American citizen arrested in October for allegedly helping plot a 2008 killing spree by Pakistan-based militants in Mumbai that killed more than 160 people, including six Americans. Headley is also charged with plotting terrorist attacks against the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, whose 2005 publication of controversial cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad sparked protests throughout the Muslim world. The 12 criminal counts, including six counts of aiding and abetting the murder of U.S. citizens in India, expand the government's case against Headley and drive home the unsettling idea that the U.S. can no longer rely on its borders to keep extremism out.

Fast Facts:
• Born Daood Gilani in Washington, D.C., in 1960 to a Pakistani father and an American mother. Lives with his wife and children in Chicago.

• After his parents' divorce, returned to Pakistan with his father and was raised in a traditional Muslim household until moving to Philadelphia at age 17 to live with his mother.

• Attended the Community College of Philadelphia, but left school before receiving a degree.

• Worked in a bar and a series of video stores after leaving school.

• Convicted on heroin-smuggling charges in 1998; served 15 months in prison. Headley later worked for the Drug Enforcement Administration, in part to avoid a lengthier jail sentence.

• Allegedly received training from Kashmiri separatist group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) from February 2002 to December 2003. The group, which aims to drive Indian forces out of the disputed territory of Kashmir, is considered a foreign terrorist operation by the U.S. government.

• Changed his name to David Headley (Headley being his mother's maiden name) in 2005. Authorities say the change was made to ease travel and make him seem more American while working for LeT.

• Since his alleged training with LeT, has traveled frequently between Pakistan, India, the Middle East and the U.S.• Visited India more than nine times in three years and allegedly scoped out Mumbai Harbor in 2008, looking for places for the Mumbai attackers to land their boat in advance of their Nov. 26 assault.

• Claimed to have been employed by First World Immigration Services, a company owned by Pakistan-born Canadian citizen Tahawwur Hussain Rana. Rana was arrested on conspiracy charges.

Quotes By:
"Some of us are saying that 'terrorism' is the weapon of the cowardly. I will say that you may call it barbaric or immoral or cruel, but never cowardly ... Courage is, by and large, exclusive to the Muslim nation."
— From a February 2009 e-mail to high school classmates, one of many he wrote defending Muslim extremism (New York Times, Nov. 22, 2009)

"The best way for a man to die is with the sword."
— In an e-mail defending the beheading of a Polish engineer by Taliban fighters in Pakistan (New York Times, Nov. 22, 2009)

Quotes About:
"He came in, talked to people, talked to Dr. Rana, worked on the computer a little bit and didn't say a lot."
— Raymond Sanders, an immigration lawyer who rented office space from Headley's co-defendant, Tahawwur Hussain Rana (Washington Post, Nov. 20, 2009)

"You might as well be telling me my nephew is being charged with 9/11. That's like pouring cold water inside me. He's been in trouble before, but we thought something like this was beyond his character."
— William Headley, David Headley's uncle (New York Times, Dec. 7, 2009)

"He would clearly state he had contempt for infidels. He kept talking about the return of the 14th century, saying Islam was going to take over the world."
— Lorenzo Lacovara, a former worker at a Philadelphia bar run by Headley's mother