Critical info safe from Chinese hackers

No hacker has hacked into India’s critical information infrastructure, a top official in the Indian security establishment told DNA.

A day after researchers based at the University of Toronto’s Munk Center for International Studies reported about a vast cyber spy network controlled from China infiltrating into government and private computers in 103 countries including those of the Indian embassy in Washington and the Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama, the Indian security establishment said that besides the Indian embassy in Washington’s website, no other website or information system has been hacked into.

“We will investigate the breach,” a senior official told DNA.

According to senior officials, hacking of a website of an Indian mission abroad is a serious matter, but “such attacks don’t affect the critical information infrastructure.”

Critical information infrastructure comprises systems that run the internet and internet-based applications in India. The intranet maintained by the defence ministry and the networks maintained by the Indian intelligence apparatus are also part of this infrastructure.

In September 2007, a Swedish hacker managed to hack into emails of the Indian embassies in the US, China, Germany, Belgium, among others and triggered a million dollar question on the issue of cyber security, or rather, lack of it. Investigation revealed that the websites could be hacked into because embassy officials surf the Internet using proxy servers, which are unsafe.