Cyber Criminals on the Prowl: Defence Personnel easy prey?

80 Indians fall prey to cyber fraud every minute
Published: Monday, Sep 17, 2012, 9:00 IST
By Sunchika B Pandey | Place: Mumbai | Agency: DNA
If most of us have gone mobile, so have the cyber criminals. And like many of us, most of their time is being spent on the social networking sites. The cyber criminals are making a living out of it.
According to Norton Cybercrime Report 2012, 66% of Indian online adults have been a victim of cyber fraud in their lifetime. In the past 12 months, 56% of online adults in India have experienced cyber fraud.
As per the report, at least 1,15,000 people fall prey to cyber fraud every day, while 80 per minute and more than one per second leading to a rise in the average direct financial cost per victim to around Rs10,500.
According to the survey, the cybercriminals have now shifted their focus to the increasingly popular social platforms. One in three adults online Indians (32%) have been either social or mobile cybercrime victims.
While most internet users delete suspicious emails and are careful with their personal details online. However, 25% don’t use complex passwords or change their passwords frequently and 38% do not check for the padlock symbol in the browser before entering sensitive personal information.
Online adults are also unaware of the evolution of most common forms of cybercrime. In fact, 68% of adults do not know that malware can operate in a discreet fashion, making it hard to know if a computer has been compromised, and one third (35%) are not certain that their computer is currently clean and free of viruses.
“Malware and viruses used to wreak obvious havoc on your computer,” said Ibrahim. “You’d get a blue screen, or your computer would crash, alerting you to an infection. But cyber criminals have evolved new methods to avoid detection,” added Ibrahim.
80 Indians fall prey to cyber fraud every minute
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National Security: Army Major's computer was accessed from Pakistan

14/06/2010
New Delhi: Security agencies probing the role of an Andaman- based Army Major have claimed to have found that his computer and emails had been remotely accessed from a server located in Pakistan, a finding that has come as a jolt for them.

The probe also indicated that the National Investigating Agency and Military Intelligence officials had neglected the case property--the computer of the Army Major--and certain files and mails were deleted when the machine was in their custody, official sources said.

During the probe, it was also found that the computer of the army officer had been accessed many a time from a proxy server based in Pakistan and one more country, the location of which was being examined.

It seemed the other server could also be from Pakistan but the proxy server addresses had been hopped through various Internet gateways of European countries.

The Army major, who is being investigated by various security agencies, came under the scanner when his email address was picked up while scanning the emails of US-born terror accused David Headley.

The US agencies informed the Indian security agencies about the email address and the Army major, who was likely to be booked under Official Secrets Act by the NIA, was put under the scanner.

The probe so far has indicated that the official had violated OSA as nearly 2,500 defence presentations were found on his computer. These documents related to issues much beyond his sphere of work.

The computer is currently with the Central Forensic Sciences Laboratory (CFSL) in Hyderabad. Earlier, the Major had said he was an inquisitive person but he was himself at a loss to know how some files had entered his computer. The forensic report of the seized computer clearly shows that there were over 2,500 presentations, some of which were secret and even top secret, the sources said.

In a related development, the forensic report said that some files and emails were deleted from the computer on a particular date after it was seized by authorities, pressing panic buttons among the agencies.
Source: Agencies
Army Major's computer was accessed from Pakistan
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Indian Military restricts social networking sites

Cyber Sex: New challenges for the Indian Military

US Centric
As military personnel return from Iraq and Afghanistan, there is growing concern about how the range of traumatic brain injury, post traumatic stress, depression, anxiety and tobacco and alcohol and drug abuse has increased dramatically. According to research released by RAND, up to 30 percent of returning war veterans report symptoms of cognitive impairment or mental disorders. Military personnel who have been exposed to combat are more likely to engage in binge drinking and smoking. As a result, the Millennium Cohort Study will follow a representative sample of the U.S. military personnel from 2001 to 2022 – making it the largest of its kind in the history of our military.

But there’s another type of addiction prevalent in the military – sex addiction, especially cybersex addiction. Renowned expert Robert Weiss, founder of the Sexual Recovery Institute in California, consults with the military to spread awareness about this growing concern. Behavioral Health Central spoke with Weiss about this issue.
Read more:
Addressing Sex Addiction in the Military – A Talk with Expert Rob Weiss from the Sexual Recovery Institute

India Centric
Troops who serve in High Altitude areas, Jammu and Kashmir and NE Regions combating terror do suffer from isolation, risk to life, lack of recreation and entertainment. This frustrating living conditions is ideal to develop various addictions like alcohol, drugs and cyber sex. JCOs, NCOs and Sepoy's are more prone to various addictions as they mingle freely with civil population and the Military needs to be aware of it to constantly strive and evolve mechanisms to combat such diseases which can reduce the combat potential of a unit/ individual. The Officer community too with increasing purchasing power after the SCPC do succumb to addictions if they are not kept busy in professional work. ASC, Ordnance, EME and AMC officers are more prone to porn addiction and it is essential that there is inbuilt checks to ensure such addiction does not degrade the the Military in its Conduct, Morale and Leadership. Lessons need to be learnt from UN Peace Keeping ops in Africa where child sex and smuggling were dominant features of the Peace Keepers. click here for child sex and smuggling report by UNO
Condom machines at borders for PMF

China excels in Cyber Theft of Classified documents

Turning the tables on a China-based computer espionage gang, Canadian and United States computer security researchers have monitored a spying operation for the past eight months, observing while the intruders pilfered classified and restricted documents from the highest levels of the Indian Defence Ministry.

In a report issued Monday night, the researchers, based at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto, provide a detailed account of how a spy operation it called the Shadow Network systematically hacked into personal computers in government offices on several continents.

The Toronto spy hunters not only learned what kinds of material had been stolen, but were able to see some of the actual documents, including classified assessments about security in several Indian states, and confidential embassy documents about India's relationships in West Africa, Russia and the Middle East. The intruders breached the systems of independent analysts, taking reports on several Indian missile systems. They also obtained a year's worth of the Dalai Lama's personal e-mail messages.
Read complete cyber espionage sequence
Researchers trace Indian Defence Ministry data theft to China

Comment: We need to subject Chinese to our "Official Secret Act", which will screw them beyond redemption.

Military Personnel victims of cyber crime

Frauds go online to cheat people by Sandeep Rana: Tribune News Service
Dehradun, December 24, 2009
If you receive an email from your friend asking you for monetary help as he is in a dire need somewhere abroad, then beware and check out with him if he really wants some help. Off late, many frauds had employed this trick to cheat people of their hard-earned money.

The modus operandi wherein cheaters first procure personal information of a person and then ask his friends for monetary help by hacking his personal email ID has trapped even well-known names of the city as well.

Several city residents have fallen prey to these cheaters. Some even lodged complaints with the police while others simply avoided such emails.

Even though the Dehradun police doesn’t have separate data for how many such complaints have been received, such emails is a cause of concern and an awareness drive is the only cure.

A victim of such emails, Brig KG Behl (retd), complained to the police last week that his email ID had been hacked and emails were sent through his ID to his friends asking for $2,500 urgently as he (Brigadier Behl) had got stranded in London and had lost his belongings.

Brigadier Behl added that the emails had mentioned the postal address of London where money was to be sent and asked to email the money transfer control number (MTCN) with details required to send it.

Garwhal IG MA Ganpathy said: “One such case in five or six months comes to us. This is basically a cyber crime and we register such cases under the IT Act and start investigation.

“A few Nigerians were held in Tehri who were involved in cyber crime some times ago”.

The IG maintained that these works were solely done by foreigners and there was no possibility of involvement of any local in such cases.

Another modus operandi of such cheats, emails pronouncing you as a winner of big jackpots and prizes are very common these days and people easily avoid them knowing the trick behind these.

However, a woman of Turner Road was cheated of over 3 lakh in September in one such case. The victim, Anjum, in her complaint to the police had alleged that she had received an email saying that she had won Rs 2 crore lottery from a London-based company. She was asked over the phone to deposit some earnest amount in an account mentioned by it. She used to receive receipts of her payments through emails. After a few payments worth more than Rs 3.5 lakh, the email stopped replying and the woman later contacted the police.

Station house officer of the Patel Nagar police station Chandan Singh Bisht said the only way to catch the persons involved in such cyber crimes was through their cell phone from which they contacted the victim. But, it was found switched off as the woman had approached the police quite late.

The police is now relying on the EMI number of the cellphone through surveillance to nab the frauds, but it is possible only if they use the cell phone again.
Frauds go online to cheat people

Lt Col D Chaturvedi (retd) was in a shock when, on December 28, he came to know that an amount of Rs 4, 93, 528 has been debited from his pension account at the Survey of India branch of Punjab National Bank fraudulently.
click here to read the full story

Defence Pension Racket
NAGPUR: A retired Lieutenant Colonel has moved the high court here claiming that many persons were illegally drawing pension meant for World War-II (WW-II) veterans. The 61-year-old Lt Col Shrikant Kane produced information obtained under Right to Information (RTI) Act and said as many as 59 persons were being given pension in contravention of eligibility norms for years. The amount involved may run lakhs.

The petitioner who retired as regular officer of Indian Army's Corps of Signals after over two decades of service has prayed for directions to the state government to investigate the matter and arrest the beneficiaries. Alternatively, he demanded an enquiry by Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) within a stipulated period.
Retd army man exposes defence pension racket

Email Hacking
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