Sources said the decision goes back to the Mumbai terror attacks of November 26-29, 2008, during which the terrorists used the BlackBerry extensively to communicate with their handlers in Pakistan.

Following the 26/11 attacks, the Intelligence Bureau submitted a dossier to the home ministry, included in which was a section on how the terrorists monitored the police operation using technology and exchanged e-mails over their BlackBerry devices.

So popular is the BlackBerry among the terror network that sources in the Intelligence Bureau told  that one out of 10 terrorists today use it.

It is a known fact among intelligence circles that the Lashkar-e-Tayiba has in place a competent technical cell that is aware that Indian security agencies do not have access to the encryption keys, making it next to impossible for them to monitor e-mails transmitted on the Blackberry.

Although RIM has blinked a little and said it will share information with the Indian agencies, the latter is not happy about it.

“The problem is they have told us that information would be shared, but it would not be real time,” sources in the Intelligence Bureau told this correspondent. “Such information is of no use to us. Delay by even one day can prove fatal and if we agree to what they are saying then we will get information from them a week late, which is just not good enough.”

The IB’s 26/11 dossier points out that terrorist groups know that e-mails sent from computers and laptops can be traced by the intelligence agencies, and as a consequence the number of such traditional e-mails has fallen drastically.

Today the preferred mode of communication in the terror network seems to be the satellite phone and the BlackBerry, since they are confident that security agencies will not be able to track them.

To back their claim, IB sources pointed out that of late, most of the arrested terrorists have been found to be carrying such devices, procured under benami (false) identities and using fake documents.

Since the intelligence agencies are unable to track the terrorists’ e-mails, they have had to fall back on interrogation and confessions, which run the possibility of being denied in a court of law — and ultimately, a low rate of conviction.

“Since the BlackBerry servers are based in other countries and we do not have treaties with those nations, it is very important that they hand over the information to us,” the sources added.

“If access to real time information is not given to us, the terrorists will always manage to bypass our security agencies.”

Also, the IB sources pointed out, local laws do not provide for a routing arrangement to intercept BlackBerry data which is why the Intelligence Bureau has been saying that a copy of all BlackBerry e-mails be made available to it.

If RIM is unable to do so, then it would need to move its servers to India to enable the agencies to keep tabs, with no international law coming in the way.

This is not an April fool’s day joke dear. Its a virus which is said to hit many Pcs and takeover control over them on 1st April. The name is conficker. Prominently it targets the Microsoft Operating systems and especially Windows Xp and Vista. Conficker first bubbled up in late 2008 and began making headlines in January as known infections topped 9 million computers. Now in its third variant, Conficker C, the worm has grown incredibly complicated, powerful, and virulent… though no one is quite sure exactly what it will do when D-Day arrives. So its a suspense and we have to watch to see its vulnerabilities on 1st April.

Conficker hideously installs remote softwares on infected PC leaving insecured and allowing remote connection with head servers of the Virus. Its unpredictable that what will be the affects of this worm. But it is said to be that the virus is meant to create a botnet with help of installed malicious softwares and further it will be rented to the cyber-criminals who wish to do SPAM activities and stealing IDs and Passwords and even more.

This worm mostly spreads across networks. If it finds a vulnerable computer, it turns off the automatic backup service, deletes previous restore points, disables many security services, blocks access to a number of security web sites and opens infected machines to receive additional programs from the malware’s creator. The worm then tries to spread itself to other computers on the same network. It even make its copy in removable USB flash memories for spreading.

Who is at risk?

If you have disabled your windows update and have old virus definitions for your antivirus, you may be at high risk. Users who do not have a genuine version of Windows from Microsoft are most at risk since pirated system usually cannot get Microsoft updates and patches.

Advice to Stay Safe from the Downadup aka Conficker Worm:

1. Run a good security suite and antiviruses such as Norton, Kaspersky.
2. Keep your computer updated with the latest patches. If you don’t know how to do this, have someone help you set your system to update itself.
3. Don’t use “free” security scans that pop up on many web sites. All too often these are fake, using scare tactics to try to get you to purchase their “full” service. In many cases these are actually infecting you while they run. There is reason to believe that the creators of the Conficker worm are associated with some of these fake security products.
4. Turn off the “autorun” feature that will automatically run programs found on memory sticks and other USB devices.
5. Be smart with your passwords. This includes

1. Change your passwords periodically
2. Use complex passwords – no simple names or words, use special characters and numbers
3. Using a separate, longer password for each site that has sensitive personal information or access to your bank accounts or credit cards.

1. Use a passwords management system such as Identity Safe (included in Norton Internet Security and Norton 36o) to track your passwords and to fill out forms automatically.

****One symptom that may indicate you are infected is finding that your computer is blocked from accessing the web sites of most security companies.

Conficker is clever in the way it hides its tracks because it uses an enormous number of URLs to communicate with HQ. The first version of Conficker used just 250 addresses each day — which security researchers and ICANN simply bought and/or disabled — but Conficker C will up the ante to 50,000 addresses a day when it goes active, a number which simply can’t be tracked and disabled by hand.

At this point, you should be extra vigilant about protecting your PC: Patch Windows completely through Windows Update and update your anti-malware software as well. Make sure your antivirus software is actually running too, as Conficker may have disabled it.

Microsoft also offers a free online safety scan here, which should be able to detect all Conficker versions.

****Be safe while you surf ****

This is not a new issue of cyber-war between India and Pakistan. Whenever relations go worse they start attacking Indian computer networks and this has increased after the famous Mumbai terror attacks. This was said by the source from home ministry of India.  Already Pakistani hackers are trying out a dry run against Indian networks through popular websites registered there.

Pakistani hackers have created websites such as the www.Songs.Pk, which are infested with software to hack data from the targeted computers, sources from Home Ministry,India said.

“The website www.Songs.Pk has over 12 lakh Indian users who download stuffs like free MP3 bollywood songs and wallpapers and more from these websites on daily basis,” said a cyber expert in the Ministry.

And hence, its very true that with these sites very much popular, it will take few minutes for the hackers to get control over 12 lakh Indian user’s pc or more via means of vulnerable contents added with the downloading stuffs.
“Instead of the existing less harmful virus, new ones such as Botnet and Zoombie can be easily released into the Indian computers, which later on replicate and make the entire server vulnerable,” the expert said.

“Now a days new virus and worms are detected while downloading songs from these websites, which could be just a dry run to manage a bigger attack,” he said.

I even tried to get some more informations regarding this issue and found it true to an extend. Below is the snap-shot showing security property of a song downloaded from the site. Just have a look.

No doubt I am too an Indian and a regular user of this concerned website. Some days back this security alert was not seen in the downloaded content. But now here is the proof above with date and timings. Indian government’s websites have proved to be vulnerable in the past. ” Most of the times such cases are not reported as the servers are based in Pakistan and we cannot do anything in this regard as said by expert.

The condition may become more worst as these newly intruded viruses cannot be detected by antiviruses as their databases may not have their informations for the quick heal as its totally of new type, resulting their intrudence in our networks. So I can just say that PREVENTION IS BETTER THAN CURE. So Indian users dont download stuffs from www.songs.pk . Its better to find alternates for downloading such contents. I will be updating my blog if I come to know of more such type of vulnerable websites which may be insecure to our networks and systems.

The original Post:

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