With computers and networking becoming ubiquitous, cyber attacks are proliferating, elevating cyber security to a national concern, Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (ICERT) said today.
ICERT DG Dr Gulshan Rai said the anonymous feature of internet makes attribution and investigation complicated, which helps cyber attackers to exploit financial, strategic and national security information.
Stressing on the danger of virtuality in cyber space, he said attacks by hostile organisations, enemy nations and organised criminals are on the rise, threatening governments, business and individuals.
He was speaking on 'Cyber Security Threat Landscape - Initiatives taken by Government for Securing Cyber Space' during a symposium on 'Cyber Security and Privacy' at the 79th annual meeting of Indian Academy of Sciences.
The number of mobile phones in the world expected to rise to 8 billion by 2016, and broadband subscribers set to touch 3.5 billion by 2015, he said, adding that cyber attackers are actively looking to use social media.
Cyber criminals are threatening governments, businesses and individuals by attempting to extract technical, financial, strategic, and national security information, he said.
Large networks of compromised systems called botnets facilitate a number of malicious cyber activities, such as spam, malware hosting, phishing, click-fraud, distributed denial of service attacks, he said.
Rai spoke about trojans and malware targeting the financial sector, and said sophisticated malware was being used as cyber weapons to steal information and cause disruption in the functionalities of Industrial Control Systems and critical infrastructure.
The DG said the government has taken several steps to focus on enhancing the cyber security posture of the IT infrastructure in the country.
