<p> <i> 21.25 pm </i> FireEye study reveals cyber spying by Pakistan on India

According to some of the reports, Indian government institutes and offices were under attack by a security firm based in Pakistan. A research done by the US-based research firm, FireEye, revealed that a security company, Tranchulas, was stealing data from the Indian defense and government organizations.

The two-year investigation by the FireEye showed that the group, which is based in Islamabad, was targeting the government and defense employees by sending them malware attached to the spam emails. The booby trap technique used by them includes sending emails with subjects such as a hike in government salary and more.

“They are essentially penetrating Indian government accounts to find out what the Indian government is up to,” Manish Gupta, senior vice president at FireEye said. “They are also targeting defence organizations. Some of the things that could be important to them could be what kind of weapons does India have, where are these weapons deployed, how many people are deployed in these regions, what is the organization structure, are there any military exercises planned.”

FireEye stated that it is the same firm that has helped the Pakistan government prepare for the cyber warfare. However, in response to this, Tranchulas CEO Zubair Khan said, “We’ve had no contact with (FireEye) so I have no idea about their motivations vis-a-vis their reporting on us. Clearly, they are one of the best security research companies out there and we respect their talents in this regard.”

The CEO has neither denied nor confirmed about the attacks, however, Indian government officials still believe in the theory that the attacks were carried out on the public data. None of the secret information has been stolen away in any of these attacks.

It is without a doubt that the country can be an easy prey for the cyber criminals; it is also one of the most vulnerable countries in the world as per the Edward Snowden leaks. A major part of the country still relies on the Windows XP, which is out of support and is vulnerable.

Certainly, it’s high time for the country to revamp the existing cyber security posture.</p>