Govt 'dealing' with alleged Chinese cyber attacks

“The cyber hacking by Chinese”, as revealed by National Security Advisor (NSA) M K Narayanan, has been cryptically described as a “game of wits”  by intelligence sources, with the government dealing with it “the way it should be dealt.”

“It is a continuous process. But there is no need to get too much worried about it. It has not touched the main data,”  sources told Deccan Herald.  

Asked about the cyber penetration by the Chinese, a top home ministry official said he would not like to comment as the NSA “has reportedly spoken on the issue”.  A spokesman of the Ministry of  External Affairs also refused to comment on the issue.
Narayanan told “The Times”, on Monday that his office and other government departments were targeted on December 15, the same day when the US defence, finance and technology companies, including Google, reported cyber attacks from China.
Narayanan, who will assume charge as the governor of West Bengal soon, said the would-be hackers sent an e-mail with a PDF attachment containing a Trojan virus. The virus, which allows hackers to download or delete files, was detected and officials were told not to log on until it was eliminated, Narayanan said.

“People seem to be fairly sure it was the Chinese. It is difficult to find the exact source but this is the main suspicion. It seems well founded,” he  said.

The NSA said  India was cooperating with the US and Britain to bolster its cyber defences. Narayanan said while he expected China to be an increasingly high security priority for India, the main threat still came from Pakistan-based militants. Asked to comment on the cyber attacks, Arun Bhagat, a former director of the Intelligence Bureau, said some groups and individuals have been trying to break through the programmes in the past also. “Even Japan and Taiwan have said the Chinese are behind these attempts”, said Bhagat.

There is another view that some of these cyber penetration are allowed by New Delhi to know the sources of  its origin. “ We should be more concerned about Chinese hi-tech hardware  technology which is being  increasingly used by Beijing against India”, another official said.