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112 sites defaced
this year WITH the Internet being used by millions and increasingly more work being done on the Web, cyber crimes and netiquette are beginning to be of concern in India. These concerns came under the scanner at two conferences here, one on how to build a professional image through the Net and the other on how to regulate content on the Web. N. Vijayshankar, a cyber crime expert, said: "There are no proper assessments of cyber crime incidents in India. "In one of the recent corporate surveys, 50 per cent of the companies have admitted a hacking attempt on their network in the last year. In the USA, this rate is around 90 per cent," Vijayshankar told IANS. "Since January this year, about 112 sites in India are reported to have been 'defaced.' Virus incidences are reported at a rate of around 2,200 per day. The virus incidents in India are around 10 times that in China," he said. Added the professional e-crime observer: "I see at least one virus, two porno e-mails and one fraud mail every day in my e-mail box. If this is the rate at which around 1,50,000 ISP (Internet service provider) account holders in India may be getting damaging e-mails, there is no doubt there are innumerable incidents that are happening but going unreported." Listing the dangers to corporate entities from e-crime, Vijayshankar said: "When companies move on to the Web, their sites become the digital face of the company. The image of a company is derived from what the Website does or does not do to the visitor. If consequent to a Website visit a visitor is infected with a virus, then the image of the company takes a dent. "If, by entering into an e-commerce deal with a company, the credit card information of a customer gets compromised through a hacker entering the company Website, the company can be exposed to litigation too." He cited examples of a Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) site that became a porn site due to non-protection of domain name and a hacking into the Global Trust Bank site. Added Vijayshankar: "There is an urgent need to quantify these crime attempts by some independent organisations to arrive at a proper estimate." Suresh Kamath, the chairman of a banking software development company, said on top of the worry list was security in all Net-based operations, applications of rules and regulations, reduction of privacy and access to private information and use of the Net for illegal and terrorist acts. Tamil Nadu's IT secretary Vivek Harinarain spoke of the need to evaluate the information on Web sites and ensure it was verifiable. Added federal IT
controller K.N. Gupta: "Given the fact that the Internet is global,
the law should have a global reach. If you do not regulate, Said K. Srinivasan, a
founder of Newmedia Forum, an online journalists and IT experts' group:
"It is important that one remains in constant touch and criticism
is one way of getting to know what is wrong. An online media room for
all Websites is, therefore, a must." |
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