If India has become a hub for over 40 command-and-control viruses, Bangalore alone reportedly accounts for 13 per cent of ‘bot computers' in the country. That indicates the City’s emergence as a major link for the so-called “fraud food chain.” Tier I and II cities are also getting increasingly vulnerable.

To carry out their malicious attacks to make fastbucks, the cyber-criminals leverage sophisticated,  professionally developed toolkits like MPack, sold in the underground economy. “MPack is available online for US $ 1000 online. It can launch exploits for browser and client-side vulnerabilities against users who visit a malicious or compromised website,” explains Symantec India Managing Director, Vishal Dhapur.

Once purchased, attackers could deploy MPack's collection of software components to install malicious code on thousands of computers around the world and then monitor the success of the attack through various metrics on its online, password-protected control and management console, according to Dhapur.

He has more information on the “bot computers.” “These bots, under a command and control infrastructure, which may be in Mumbai, Bangalore or even a city like Ahmedabad, are being used by external attackers to perform DoS attacks against an organization's website. Once on an organization's network, they can be used to attack other organizations' website. Bots can be used by attackers to harvest confidential information from compromised computers, which can lead to identity theft or other fraudulent activities. They can also be used to distribute spam and phishing attacks,” he points out.

Credit card frauds
Credit cards are the most commonly advertised commodity on underground economy servers, making up 22 per cent of all advertisements, while bank accounts come a close second with 21 per cent of the cyber criminals.
As per a report by TJ Max, largest retailer in credit card, 94 million credit card numbers were stolen last year alone. The hackers had used converged network of phishers, spammers and bot masters to commit the crime.
The warning in this regard came way back in 2006, when Internet Security Threat Report by Symantec India, a leading Infrastructure Software Company, predicted that the trade of malicious code in popular forums such as IRC, websites, and black-market auction sites would continue to grow. While this prediction has been borne out, the rate of growth has exceeded most predictions.

Even the Cyber Crime police are aware of the disaster waiting to happen. “Internet is a world without boundaries. In a society, all kinds of people, including criminals live, and cyber world is no exception,” notes Dr B A Mahesh, Superintendent of Police with CoD. “We cannot say that Indian police are well equipped to handle the entire situation, but things are moving in right direction. Whenever we receive complaints, we will work on that,” he assures.