The Hindu : Indo-Pak. hacker war comes here too

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Jun 09, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Kerala

Indo-Pak. hacker war comes here too

By G. Anand

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM June 8. Cyber security experts working for the Central Government are reportedly pursuing a possible lead that an elusive Thiruvananthapuram-based computer hacker could be colluding with Pakistani hackers bent on destroying Indian servers and web sites.

Sources gave the code name of the hacker as `Cobra' and said he used an Internet cable connection provided by a local company in the State. A web trace on his activities has led the experts to believe that the elusive `Cobra' regularly frequented a Government-owned Internet cafe in the city. The sources said efforts were on to ascertain his identity.

In February this year, `Yaha', a group of Indian hackers of which `Cobra' is a member, had launched a `worm' (`Yaha-Q') which did a `distributed denial of service attack' on several Pakistan Government sites.

The sources now believe that the `source codes' of the disruptive `Yaha-Q' worm were compromised to Pakistani hackers by `Cobra' and two other Indian hackers identified by their code-names as `Xtremist' and `Roxx'.

The sources alleged that `Cobra', `Xtremist' and `Roxx', who were originally members of the Indian hacker group `Yaha' which developed the `Yaha-Q' worm, are now working to the advantage of Pakistani hacker groups.

``There is a grave threat against Indian servers both in the Government and private sector, now that the source code of `Yaha-Q' worm has been compromised. The worm could be remodified by Pakistani hackers and used against Indian servers. Recently, the tenders online site of the Central Government was defaced. We believe this is the first of a series of attacks to come against key Indian sites,'' the sources said.

They said the Internet communication of `Roxx', a school student based in Kolkata, was intercepted by cyber security experts working for the Central Government. The probe on `Roxx' led the experts to `Xtremist', a student hailing from Bangalore, and later to the Thiruvananthapuram-based `Cobra', who remains elusive.

Sources said that there were reasons to believe that some key members of the Indian hacker group, `Yaha', are now working to the advantage of `G- Force', an anti-India hacker group which they suspect is funded by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).

The sources said that `G-Force' comprises Pakistani hackers grouped against India on political and ideological lines. It is believed to have been floated in 1998 and later started operating under the name `Element Group' in 2002. The cyber security experts believe that anti-India hacker groups such as `Anti-India Crew' (AIC) have links to the `Element Group'.

These groups are reportedly into recruiting Indian hackers for developing worms and viruses which could be potentially used against Indian websites and servers. Money is a key factor in the recruitment game and payments are made to recruits through money transfer firms and hawala routes, the sources said. They said there were reasons to believe that the `Yaha' group, which was once `defined' as `pro-India', has now been `infiltrated by anti- Indian hacker groups'.

Over the past two-and-a-half years, the cyber war between Indian and Pakistani hackers has been hotting up and leading to the defacement of hundreds of websites on either side.

Earlier this year, newspaper reports had indicated that an unnamed virus launched by a secretive Indian hacker group had rendered 200 Pakistani websites inaccessible for several days and erased the hard disks of scores of computers in the Pakistani Government as well as the private sector in that country.

Pakistani hacker groups have attacked nearly 500 Indian websites this year alone. More than 270 of the attacks came in April. The most recent attack was on the site of an Indian TV news channel.

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