Stumped by terrorists who get away with sending e-mails about blasts using open Wi-Fi networks, the government has set up an inter-ministerial panel to find ways to beat them.
In three months, terrorists hacked into open Wi-Fi networks of individuals twice to send e-mails about the blasts in Ahmedabad and Delhi to the media, which has prompted the home, IT and communications ministry to look at strengthening the law to book offenders who misuse wireless internet networks to send terror messages.
The committee is headed by Adviser (Telecom), DoT and the members are from, Telecom Engineering Centre, Ministry of Home, Intelligence Bureau and Department of Information Technology.
It will examine various international practices and enforceable ways and means to detect the actual user in a Wi- Fi network and suggest any amendments to the existing policies and licences for internet services and associated issues.
DoT officials, however, admit that the march of technology cannot be halted but its misuse certainly has to be checked. A senior DoT official said the report is expected to be submitted by November third week and most likely the existing ISP licences would be amended to incorporate penalty and punishment for the ISP and the mail sender respectively for an open Wi-Fi network.
An official of the cyber security wing of DIT Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) said the ISPs should provide all these features of password and password protection. The open network and open password make it quite easy for anyone to access another person’s network. The most widely used and default password for Wi-Fi open network is 1234.