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Bangalore
May 25th, 2007
Infrastructure software firm Symantec Corp. has said that that impact of
threats against India was likely to go up with the increase in broadband
penetration in the country. Addressing the media in Bangalore, Prabhat Kumar
Singh, director of the Security Response Labs at Symantec, said this was due to
the "more number of PCs remaining connected for longer period of
time."
According to India's broadband policy unveiled in 2004, the government was
expecting to have nine million subscribers online in 2007and 20 million
subscribers in 2010. Though hit with difficulties, the government was mulling
over the release of additional spectrum and allow broadband operators use the
network of telecom PSUs to reach households across the country.
Symantec said it has found increasing evidence of data leakage and financial
driven crimes in the country, which affect the corporate.
The firm, in its Internet Security Threat Report - Volume 11, also said
generic HTTP Connect TCP Tunnel Attack against corporate in India constituted 17
per cent of the top attacks against the country.
This information indicated two possibilities: the attackers were using
corporate networks as a transit route to other networks or data was being leaked
from within the organizations, Singh said.
Generic TCP Segment Overwrite Attack led the Symantec list of top attacks
against India with 63 per cent, said the report. The report covered a six-month
period, from July 2006 to December 2006.
It also found that the level of attacks was getting modular, sophisticated
and for financial gains. There were clear signs of online underground economy
for fraud and India was a participant in the fraud food chain, the report added.
Sixty per cent of the top 50 malicious codes reported in India contained
threats to confidential information. "These are increasingly used for
criminal activities," Singh said.
According to Vishal Dhupar, managing director of Symantec India and SAARC
region, "Old threats persist, as newer threats continue to emerge."
The latest report found "no change" in threats from the previous
reporting period, the six-months before July 2006.
Mumbai had the highest number of bot-infected computers in India, accounting
for 38 per cent of the total, followed by Delhi (25 per cent), Bangalore (15 per
cent) and Chennai (10 per cent).
The report said India is ranked 14 worldwide hosting phishing websites.
Mumbai hosted 30 per cent of the total phishing sites in India, Delhi 29 per
cent, and Bangalore and Chennai accounted for 12 per cent each of the total
sites.
Eighty-four per cent of the attacks against India originated from the United
States, while Australia came second with six per cent of attacks targeting
India.
Of the total attacks that originated from India, 68 per cent was aimed at the
US and 11 per cent attacked Australia. Page(s) 1
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