MEA computer systems hacked by China!!

[slugger]

list of Pakistani and Iranian government sites and their potential vulnerabilities.

*cryptome.org/gov-ir.htm

*cryptome.org/gov-pk.htm

Instead of talking about the past and analysing how past incidences are influencing current actions, would it not be a more relevant discussion talking about Network security instead. Ways to patch up any exisiting vulnerabilities and strengthening.

After all a lot of the members are into businesses where they have control over or manage publically accessible Servers (Webservers or otherwise) and could give us valuable tips and information and using the list mentioned above may be able to improve upon their own Server by patching up some of their own loopholes.

a significant number are also certified by M.S, Cisco, Red Hat etc or in the process of getting and could thus contribute to this thread

 

[Hitboxx]

[quote edited by Raaabo: slugger has changed his post, so the old quote no longer applies]

Do you know what you just did? You have earned a week's ban(until 19th), this time it's temporary. A completely un-ethical and nonsense post. Be cleaned up when you return.

 

[vaithy]

another interesting news connected with the same theme.. may put in another thread, but the discussion may be on the same line,.. so I posted here..

The official website of the Tibetan government-in-exile in India has crashed after an attack by unidentified hackers, Tibetan media reports said on Sunday.

The website, www.tibet.net, offered ''page cannot be displayed'' or if surfed from within the United States, takes the person to pages of web hosting service providers like bluehost.com that says, ''there is no website configured at this address. You are seeing this page because there is nothing configured for the site you have requested.''

The hacked website, built eight years ago, is the online platform of the exile Tibetan government's press releases, and official news reports. It crashed on April 11.

Tibetan exiles said they did not know who had hacked into the website but said they suspected it could be the Chinese, the report said.

The development comes amid media reports that some computer servers of the Ministry of External Affairs were attacked, apparently by Chinese hackers.

The website carried anti-Chinese statements since March 10, when Beijing ordered a crackdown on the worst riots since 1989 which erupted in the Tibetan capital Lhasa, a popular Tibetan website, Phayul.com said.

 

[Raaabo]

Do you know what you just did? You have earned a week's ban(until 19th), this time it's temporary. A completely un-ethical and nonsense post. Be cleaned up when you return.

Seems a little harsh! Cryptome is a site everyone should support in my personal opinion. Slugger un-miserabled, but with the following warning:

@Slugger: Please edit your post as you see fit, even to replace the original content. However, I would advise that you rephrase the "instead of wastin time givin history lessons go figure how u can make sum use of this info" because it very obviously tells me that you are specifically showing details of flaws in Pakistani government sites, and asking our forum members to "make sum use" of it - which seems like a very blatant invitation to "hack". If that part of the post remains the way it does, I will personally delete your account! I also find it sneaky that you haven't mentioned flaws in any other country's government servers, so why only Pakistan?

@hitboxx: For first time offenders, please just edit their posts, and always provide information in their post itself as to what you have edited. And let's try not to have an itchy ban/miserable finger! Otherwise, good going.

 

[Faun]

sweet talking

 

[gary4gar]

I am sensing some Heat in here

 

[kumarmohit]

Sometimes I think that the best Chinese can do is make really great food and really cheap looking fake electronics.

This kind of hacking war has been going on between the Chinese and USA + NATO. We can assume the same with India as well. No one is going to start a real war coz they know if they do it no one is going to win. Unless we have some really crazy person at the top.

 

[slugger]

@Raaabo

thanks a lot for removing my temp ban.

OK!!!! , while reading the last statement now, I realized that it could be interpreted wrongly, as has been done here. it was actually a statement that came out pretty much instinctively out of the sheer irritation of seeing the thread go IMO in an Offtopic direction

I was getting lessons in History....Geography....Politics. Werent these the reasons why passing out from school felt that much better

no problemo!! already made changes

I thought that by posting the link, it could serve as a Catalyst [BIG words, I know. But in light of what happened, I am trying to watch my mouth/fingers] for a more relevant discussion, from which I could learn and pick up valuable nuggets of information. the absence of the other link was a genuine slip in y hurry to post sumthin. i had abosolutely no malicious intentions.

but Raaabobhai 1 thing
this forum is wayyyyyyy too mainstream for those kind of people to hang out

hovever i found 1 thing a lil' strange

you make no mention of the act of deleting out 5 letters, that turned a legitimate name of a country into an extremely abusive word that Indians abroad too are subjected to.

Well i will be announcing it in the whining thread later today. will be posting it just as soon as i draft out a well-thought out post that would state out only the facts devoid of any negative feelings or malice for the other members to know about the abuse of power for personal vendetta by the Moderator that evening.

-------
EDIT
did not notice your post @karnivore

thanx for the welcome note

well the history geog poli reference was not for any 1 member but for everybody who was going in that direction (now somebody found a way to talk about noodles and momos )

save for the 3 mentioned topics, school wasnt so bad actually
-------
EDIT

@Raaabo

a grudging O.K.
(my draft too wasn't ready)

 

[karnivore]

^^ First, good to see u back....and back with a thunder .

Secondly, i understand your irritation. Since this is a tech forum, History, Geography, Politics and everything else that does not directly connect with tech are delimited . Point gleefully taken .

Thirdly, i started "giving history lessons" because of certain comments made by the thread starter, which seemed to imply something derogatory . Although I understand that it was bona-fide, I just wanted to point out the error made in the assessment, which was clearly based on mis-information, half-truth and rumour .

I was under the impression , that since it is in Random News segment, probably, it won't matter much, but apparently it does .

Sorry to have reminded you of school, though .

 

[Raaabo]

you make no mention of the act of deleting out 5 letters... Well i will be announcing it in the whining thread later today...

@ Slugger: I have searched through the database and cannot find any proof to suggest that the moderator made that change. Since there is no proof, I will not take any action against it, and I suggest that you do the same. This is a trivial matter, and since the concerned mod is under observation, you can get back to a normal forum existence.

@Hitboxx: I am not accusing you of changing slugger's post, so forget about that issue and continue doing the great job that you are. But please ensure that you do not change the tone of a member's post when editing anything in the future.

As for everyone else, please read what you are posting before you click that button. It will save everyone a lot of headaches. I also insist that this trivial matter be forgotten, and no mention of it be brought up in this thread or any other. We all have much better content to read on this forum.

Peace! That's an order

 

[kumarmohit]

Shud've locked the thread, I see no point in dragging this further.

 

[vaithy]

^^


Thirdly, i started "giving history lessons" because of certain comments made by the thread starter, which seemed to imply something derogatory . Although I understand that it was bona-fide, I just wanted to point out the error made in the assessment, which was clearly based on mis-information, half-truth and rumour .

.

thanks for this nice appreciation

 

[kalpik]

@Hitboxx,

No offence mate, but it seems like you wait for a chance to delete a thread or ban or warn someone ever since you became a mod.

How could he have done that before he was a MOD?

Anyway, this is clearly an offtopic post. Hope it doesnt happen again

 

[Renny]

Nyway I've deleted my post,

Again no offense meant .

 

[vaithy]

It seems chinese are making many inroads in to indias's network, by hacking and creating their BOT comrades... to day's TOI chennai edition has one interesting article

Chinese cyber assaults on Indian networks on the rise
Indrani Bagchi | TNN

New Delhi: China’s cyber warfare army is marching on, and India is suffering silently. Over the past one and a half years, officials said, China has mounted almost daily attacks on Indian computer networks showing its intent and capability.
The sustained assault almost coincides with the present political disquiet between the countries. According to senior government officials, these attacks are not isolated incidents of something so generic or basic as “hacking” — they are far more sophisticated and complete — and there is a method behind the madness.s.
Publicly, senior government officials, when questioned, take refuge under the argument that “hacking” is a routine activity and happens from many areas around the world. But privately, they acknowledge that the cyber warfare threat from China is more real than from other countries.
The core of the assault is that the Chinese are constantly scanning and mapping India’s official networks. This gives them a good idea of not only the content but also how to disable the networks during a conflict. This, officials say, is China’s way of gaining “an asymmetrical advantage” over a potential adversary.
The big attacks that were sourced to China over the last few months were an attack on the NIC (National Infomatics Centre), which was aimed at the National Security Council, and on MEA. Other networks, said sources, are routinely targeted though they haven’t been disabled. A quiet effort is under way to set up defence mechanisms, but cyber warfare is yet to become a big component of India’s security doctrine. Teams of officials are involved in deflection of attacks. But the real gap is that a retaliatory offensive system is yet to be created.
And it’s not difficult, said sources. Chinese networks are very porous — and India is an acknowledged IT giant!
There are three main weapons in use against Indian networks — BOTS, key loggers and mapping of networks. According to sources in the government, Chinese hacckers are acknowledged experts in setting up BOTS. A BOT is a parasite program embedded in a network, which hijacks the network and makes other computers act according to its wishes, which, in turn, are controlled by “external” forces.
The controlled computers are known as “zombies” in the colourful language of cyber security, and are a key aspect in cyber warfare. According to official sources, there are close to 50,000 BOTS in India at present — and these are “operational” figures.
What is the danger? Simply put, the danger is that at the appointed time, these “external” controllers of BOTNETS will command the networks, through the zombies, to move them at will. Exactly a year ago, Indian computer security experts got a glimpse of what could happen when a targeted attack against Estonia shut that country down — it was done by one million computers from different parts of the world — and many of them were from India!

 

[kumarmohit]

BTW, How many of our netas and babus can actually spell " computer hacker " !
Not many by nay chance.

 

[hellknight]

THis could be the job of HUC (Hackers Union of China). I saw this show once on Discovery about hacking where HUC and American Hackers were fighting and hacking each other's system. This all happened when a rocket fired from American plane killed 2-3 chinese in Yugoslavia. HUC is funded by Govt. We know that Chinese people can't access half of the world's internet. And for the Indian Govt, MEA, Use Linux.....

 

[vaithy]

BSNL BECOME VICTIM OF THE LATEST ASSAULT BY CHINESE!!

Chinese hackers attack Gujarat BSNL website
Gloria D Souza, 12 May 2008, Monday
Views:: 391 Comments: 0 [Previous Article] [Next Article]
Hacking these days is getting quite common. Few months back, the Maharashtra government website was hacked and now government owned telecom website www.gujarat.bsnl.co.in was attacked by hackers and was no longer in the control of the government.
“HACKED BY Cilgin hacker thanks: m0sted, kerem125, sari_seytan, ercu_145 all terrörist crew !n...,” flashing on the government telecom website was enough to indicate that it had been hacked.

Sources also revealed that the ministry’s computer were also targeted quite often. Hacking of websites is quite common but hacking a government website surely needs to be taken care of with utmost priority and urgency. Mostly, the Chinese Internet Protocol (IP) addresses are traced, which are into the hacking of the websites.

The matter is a cause of concern as the hackers are trying to break into the ministry’s communication network so as to access the emails and communication between the officials and foreign mission. Moreover, some IP addresses were also traced to Eastern European countries and America.


As usual our Red comrades (Chinese ) denied the allegations and dismissed them as baseless reports and said that the Chinese government had nothing to do with it and also discourages such activities against all countries.
Who said chinese don't like humour...

source:*www.merinews.com/catFull.jsp?articleID=133890

 

[coolid30]

Our cybercrime cell don't know to catch the criminals redhanded they should have certified Ethical Hackers like me for this purpose and security of Indian Website is so outdated even a 15 year old boy can crack it.
In last month only some major website were defaced!!!

 

[vaithy]

Well done !
within 24 hours of its site hacking by chinese the Gujarat BSNL I.T wing restored the site full functionality!
Perhaps this is the blessing in disguise to demonstrate our capability to meet the chinese challange in the Cypher war ?