Forwarded by: Ravi V Prasad <r_v_pat_private> [To clear up a little confusion here, Mr. Prasad runs a small mailing list called c4i, dealing with electronic warfare issues in the Indian subcontinent. Some of the regular readers of InfoSec News & C4I.org (who also forwarded the article) thought the Hindustan Times writer was talking about C4I.org since the article mentions Mr. Prasad running c4i, a website to internet security and terrorism, which sounds suspiciously like C4I.org. - WK] http://www.hindustantimes.com/nonfram/270401/detNAT13.asp Pramit Pal Chaudhuri New Delhi April 26, 2001 THIS YEAR is set to become a record for anti-Indian hacking with 160 websites defaced in less than four months. In comparison, 131 Indian websites were attacked last year. This year's tally is heading for 650 plus. "It really doesn't look like a good year for Indian websites," says India Cracked, a website that monitors anti-Indian hacking. Leading the charge is a little-known hacker group called the Silver Lords which has wrecked 23 Indian websites in the past six days. The Silver Lords place a red and black image on the sites they hack, leaving the words: "Silver Lords: For the Freedom of Kashmir." The Silver Lords seem to be for an independent Kashmir. But they have also attacked one Pakistani website, global.net.pk. While Kashmiri hacktivism is not unknown, it has never shown this degree of cyber aggression. Most hack attacks against Indian sites are by Pakistani or Islamic groups like GForce Pakistan or Harkat-ul-mOs. Such groups have been responsible for two-thirds of the anti-India attacks this year. The screen names of seven Silver Lords are known: MaDDoNa, macviz, ScorpionKTX, Lord Choo3s, fOul, Packeted and MiRiNdA. According to Srijit, the screen name of the person who runs the Singapore-based India Cracked, the group left an e-mail address silverlordsat_private at one attack. The Silver Lords have hacked Indian sites intermittently before, as well as sites in other countries, but never showed any political leanings. MaDDoNa, in a recent solo attack on the Guru Nanak Dev University site, said nothing about Kashmir and even left a note on how to repair the site. Srijit, analyzing previous attacks by ScorpionKTX, says he "seems to be connected to Brazil." This is of interest, says Ravi V. Prasad, who runs c4i, a website to internet security and terrorism, because Brazil is a centre for mercenary hackers. They are recruited over the internet by governments and political groups to attack specific sites. This makes it likely the Silver Lords were recruited, probably three months ago, to attack India-related websites by Kashmiri activists or Pakistani agencies. "They may have been asked to attack a few Pakistani sites to make it seem they were Kashmiri," said one expert. This would explain their sudden interest in Kashmir and focus on Indian sites. Pakistani hacker groups sprang up after the Pokhran II tests and after Western hackers stole nuclear test data from the BARC. GForce was the first such group. The newest group is the World's Fantabulous Defacers. ISN is hosted by SecurityFocus.com --- To unsubscribe email LISTSERVat_private with a message body of "SIGNOFF ISN".
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Mon Apr 30 2001 - 00:49:34 PDT