Defacement of government sites by hackers, which contains critical information pertaining to security of the country, is on the rise and the complacent attitude of government agencies against cyber crime may pose serious threat to national security.

Though the commercial sectors are the sectors having maximum (85 per cent of total defacement in commercial sector) incidents of defacement of government sites, which usually have critical information pertaining to security of the country, are on continuous rise. Recently, Defence Research and development Organisation (DRDO) site was used to distribute malware.


In the recent past, it is blamed that hackers from our two neighboring countries have tried to deface the sites of our government agencies, which are having vital and sensitive security information. In the month of March 2008, 57 security incidents were reported to CERT-In from various national and international agencies. Intelligence agencies of India have taken the incidents very seriously and it was reported that the agencies met government officials and ministers on May 13, 2008, to discuss the issue of hacking of sensitive sites.

The incidents of defacing government sites are increasing by leaps and bounds. In 2005 only, 25 government sites were defaced and the number was increased to 70 in 2006. In February 2006, websites of Government of Punjab were targeted. All the websites of Government of Rajasthan were hosted on the same server and in November 2006, all the sites were defaced at very short intervals of one to two days. Every year, there is an increase in the total number of website defaced in India. In 2005 only, 373 deface were reported, which had gone to 1226 in the year 2006.


Web defacement is the term applied to unauthorised modification of websites. Web defacement occurs when an intruder maliciously alters a web page by inserting or substituting provocative or offending data. In website defacement, a system cracker breaks into a web server and alters the hosted website.


Check what the hacker can do by hacking the government sponsored sites:-


1) A hacker can hack the Delhi metro site and the entire Delhi metro can come to halt within few minutes
2) After Pokhran II test on May 11 – May 13, 1998, a group of hackers called ’Milworm’ broke into Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) site and posted anti Indian and anti-nuclear messages
3) In 1999, website of Indian Science Congress Association was defaced and the hacker posted provocative comments about Kashmir
4) In 2002, nine websites of India’s top most telecom company’s site were defaced and the sites were posted with contents accusing India of Human Right violations
5) Hackers can hack the popular sites and deface the site with anti-Indian sentiments and slogans
6) On the day of announcement of result of a public sector bank, the site of the bank can be defaced and malafied balance sheet can be posted on the site showing the losses due to currency transactions and this will results fall of the share price of the bank
7) One may find on Republic day or on Independence Day, the government sites being hacked and that anti-Indian slogans are displayed
8) Hackers can hack the official sites of the government agency and display sensitive information on the website like hacking of BARC site and displaying complete detail about the nuclear reactors etc.


What are the purposes of defacing a site? Typically, defacing the web is mainly due to following purposes:-


1) To damage the reputation of the company
2) To distribute malware
3) To prove their might in cyber warfare
4) To propagate the sentiments against a particular country


How does deface affect?


So an external programme cracks into your website and you will be surprised to see that instead of promoting your product, the site is spreading bad reputation of your product. You are launching your new toothpaste ’X’ and marketing your product through net. On website of your company, a comparison of your brand ’X’ toothpaste with your competitor brand ’Y’, with data pertaining to content in toothpaste is available. Your site claims that your brand has Fluoride, say 15 per cent whereas, your competitor has only five per cent.


Now if the security system of your server, where your site is hosted (kept), is not properly fire walled, then an intelligent software professional will crack into your web server and will change (deface) the percentage of fluoride in your toothpaste to five per cent and your competitor’s to 15 per cent.


So the very purpose of hosting the website will be defeated as it will give a wrong message to your customer visiting your site. Same way a hacker can deface the website of the firm and put wrong information on the day of announcement of result, which may lead to misinformation to investors and price of the share in market may come down


Most vulnerable domain names:-- Websites usually have domains names with ’.com’, ’.in’, ’.org’, ’.net’, ’.info’ and ’.name’. Usually, the largest numbers of website are with ‘.com’ domains only and the statistics of CERT-In shows that sites with ‘.com’ are more vulnerable to defacement. Of the total of 612 defacing reported in March 2008, ‘.com’ domain site constitute approximately 50 per cent. A total of 313 website with domain ‘.com’, 178 website with domain ‘.in’, 74 with ‘.org’, 40 with ‘.net’, six with ‘.info’ and one with ‘.name’ were defaced during March 2008.


Conclusion


The increasing attacks on government sites proves that system security is not in government’s to-do list or even if it is there, it is right at the bottom. Every time a government site is defaced, the government agencies say that some more firewalls in their networks will be positioned. It was told that a poorly configured firewall is sometimes more dangerous than no firewall at all and the increasing attacks on government site proves that government agencies are complacent after installing the firewalls without seeing the quality of configuration of the firewall.