35% of cyber attacks on Indian sites from China: official report - Pragnya IAS Academy - News Analysis.

35% of cyber attacks on Indian sites from China: official report.

“The cyber attacks from China made up 35% of the total number of cyber attacks on official Indian websites, followed by US (17%), Russia (15%), Pakistan (9%), Canada (7%) and Germany (5%),” the report says.

A report sent to the National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS) and other security agencies by a department under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has said that the maximum number of cyber attacks on official Indian websites are from China, US and Russia. It has also flagged the possibility of “malicious actors from Pakistan using German and Canadian cyberspace for intruding into Indian cyberspace and carrying out malicious activities”.
The report, prepared by the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), which comes under the ministry, analysed cyber attacks from April-June 2018. CERT-In is the nodal agency which deals with cyber security threats like hacking and phishing. It collects, analyses and disseminates information on “cyber incidents”, and also issues alerts on “cyber security incidents”.
According to the report, it has been observed that China continues to “intrude” Indian cyberspace in a “significant” way. “The cyber attacks from China made up 35% of the total number of cyber attacks on official Indian websites, followed by US (17%), Russia (15%), Pakistan (9%), Canada (7%) and Germany (5%),” it says.
“Many of the institutions impacted by the malicious activities have been identified, and they have been advised to take appropriate preventive action. These include Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), National Informatics Centre (NIC), Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC), Railways, Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS) and some banks like Punjab National Bank, Oriental Bank of Commerce, State Bank of India and state data centres, particularly in Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka,” it says.
“The activities relating to intruding into the cyberspace are being regularly monitored. China continues to be intruding the cyberspace in a significant way followed by the US and Russia. It has also been observed that intruding activities are coming from Canadian and German cyberspace — most possibly suspected to have originated from Pakistan actors to target Indian wesbites,” it states.
“They are targeting by sending spear phishing emails with malware attachments. Phishing attacks are usually in the form of an email from a trusted source where they ask for personal details such as bank details personal details, passwords,” explained an official. (Source: The Indian Express)


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35% of cyber attacks on Indian sites from China: official report.

India third-most vulnerable to cyber threats behind US, China - Pragnya IAS Academy - News Analysis

India third-most vulnerable to cyber threats behind US, China.

India is the third-most vulnerable country in terms of cyber threat risks including malware, spam, ransomware and one of the most recent and difficult-to-detect ones - cryptominers, according to a report.

About 5.09% global threats were detected in India in 2017 as compared to 5.11% in 2016, according to ‘Internet Security Threat Report’ released on Wednesday by Symantec. The US was was most vulnerable to attacks at 26.61% followed by China at 10.95%.
These rankings are based on eight parameters – malware, spam, phishing, bots, network attacks, web attacks, ransomware and cryptominers.
India continues to be second-most impacted by spam and bots and third-most impacted by network attacks and fourth-most impacted by ransomware. With the threat landscape becoming more diverse, attackers are working harder to discover new avenues of attack and cover their tracks, according to the report.
“From the sudden spread of WannaCry and Petya/NotPetya, to the swift growth in coinminers, 2017 provided us with another reminder that digital security threats can come from new and unexpected sources,” the report said.
Cryptojacking has captured the top slot at the attacker toolkit, which signals a massive threat to cyber and personal security. Cryptojacking is defined as the secret use of a computing device to mine cryptocurrency.
The detection of coinminers on end-point computers has increased by a whopping 8,500% in 2017.
In terms of cryptomining activities, India has ranked second in Asia-Pacific and Japan region (APJ), and ninth globally.
“Cryptojacking is a rising threat to cyber and personal security. “The massive profit incentive puts people, devices and organisations at risk of unauthorised coinminers siphoning resources from their systems, further motivating criminals to infiltrate everything from home PCs to giant data centers,” Tarun Kaura, director, enterprise security product management, APJ at Symantec said.
During the past year, rise in cryptocurrency values triggered a cryptojacking gold rush with cyber criminals attempting to cash in on a volatile market. India has ranked second in APJ region, ninth globally in terms of crypto mining activities.
With a low barrier of entry, requiring only a couple lines of code to operate, cyber criminals are harnessing stolen processing power and cloud CPU usage from consumers and enterprises to mine cryptocurrency, the report says.
Coinminers can slow devices, overheat batteries, and in some cases, render devices unusable. For enterprise organisations, coinminers can put corporate networks at risk of shutdown and inflate cloud CPU usage, adding cost, it said.
IoT devices continue to be ripe targets for exploitation and there was a 600% increase in overall IoT attacks in 2017. Macs are not immune either, with Symantec detecting an 80% increase in coin mining attacks against Mac OS. India has been ranked among the top five countries as a source for IoT attacks.
“Now you could be fighting for resources on your phone, computer or Internet of Things (IoT) device as attackers use them for profit. People need to expand their defenses or they will pay the price for someone else using their device,” Kaura added.
There is also a 200% increase in attackers injecting malware implants into the software supply chain in 2017. Threats in the mobile space continue to grow year-over-year, including the number of new mobile malware variants rising 54%.
Symantec blocked an average of 24,000 malicious mobile applications each day last year. India also featured among the top-10 list of countries where mobile malware was most frequently blocked in 2017.


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India third-most vulnerable to cyber threats behind US, China.