Cyber War
Pakistan lags far behind India in Information Technology (IT), but Gen. Pervez Musharraf, its self-styled Chief Executive, has embarked on an ambitious programme for catching up with India. Budgetary allocations have been increased considerably to promote computer education and research and to persuade Pakistani IT experts in the West to help Pakistan in this regard.
However, there is one domain in which Pakistan seems to have taken a lead over India- in mobilising the resources of overseas Pakistani and other Islamic IT experts and hackers in its electronic Psychological Warfare (Psywar) against India and in raising a dedicated corps of hackers, who could be used to identify weak points in the IS of Indian establishments and use them appropriately.
The potential of the World Wide Web (WWW) for Psywar purposes was realised by the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) long before the Indian intelligence did.
There are about 150 jehadi websites on the WWW today. They provide the following services:
* Dissemination of information regarding jehad in different countries.
* Instructions on how to become a Mujahideen, how to prepare improvised explosive devices etc.
* Database on where one could purchase arms and ammunition and their prices.
* A bibliography of 266 articles on urban guerilla warfare and low-intensity conflicts.
* Anti-State propaganda.
About one-third of these web sites relate to the so-called jehad in Kashmir and are run by organisations such as the JKLF, the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, the Lashkar-e-Toiba etc.
Groups such as Attrition periodically publish a list of the 10 most active hacker groups of the world. Two groups of Pakistani hackers, calling themselves “GforcePakistan” and “Pakistanhc” figure in this list. The first one is estimated to have caused 110 defacements all over the world since 1995 and the second 99 defacements. Their targets include not only India, but also the US to protest against the US attitude on Kashmir.
A third group calling itself the Muslim Online Syndicate (MOS) surfaced in March last, with an unverified claim of having defaced almost 600 Web sites in India and taken control of several Indian government and private computer systems, in protest against alleged Indian atrocities in Kashmir.
Mr.D. Ian Hopper, the CNN’s Interactive Technology Editor, reported as follows: “Unlike the majority of Web vandals, the MOS members say they secretly take control of a server, then deface the site only when they “have no more use” for the data or the server itself.”
He quoted one of the members of the group as saying as follows: “The servers we control range from harmless mail and Web services to ‘heavy-duty” government servers. The data is only being archived for later use if deemed necessary.”
It was suspected that the MOS managed to have access to Indian Websites and IS through Alabanza, a Pakistani-controlled American Internet Service Provider, which had reportedly a collaboration agreement with a well-known Indian dot.com company, without the latter being aware of its Pakistani connection.
There are many other Pakistani and Islamic hacker groups which have been active, with some of them giving online tutorials on how to use malicious software and hack and even providing malicious software, which can be downloaded and sent to someone whose computer one wants to damage.
These groups describe the growing number of hackers in the Pakistani Diaspora abroad as “Pakistan’s greatest natural resource”. The fact that they are able to indulge in such blatantly illegal activities online despite stringent Western laws against cyber crime and vandalism should be a matter of concern to Indian national security managers.
Cyber Space Security Management has already become an important component of National Security Management, Military-related Scientific Security Management and Intelligence Management all over the world. Future intrusions threatening our national security may not necessarily come from across the land frontier, or in air space or across maritime waters only, but could also come in cyber space. Intelligence operations and covert actions will be increasingly cyber based. It is important that our intelligence agencies gear themselves up to this possibility from now onwards.
It is, therefore, advisable to put in place a National Cyber Space Security Management policy to define the tasks that need attention, specify the responsibilities of the individual agencies and provide for an integrated approach and architecture.
Chinese Cyber War
India must establish an information security system to counter cyberthreats from China and Pakistan.
Since the Pokharan blasts, Pakistani computer hackers have been regularly attacking websites of Indian organizations. The homepages of the Prime Minister’s Office, Bhabha Atomic Research Center, Ministry of Information Technology, and Videsh Sanchar Nigam were hacked into and defaced with anti-India obscenities.
Pakistani hacker groups like Death to India, Kill India, and G-Force Pakistan openly circulate instructions for attacking Indian computers. The websites run by Nicholas Culshaw of Karachi, and website, run by Arshad Qureshi of Long Beach, California, contain malicious anti-Indian propaganda along with step-by-step instructions for hacking into thousands of Indian websites. Anti-Indian terrorist instructions are also hosted by http://62.236.92.165, http://209.204.7.131, and http://209.204.5.113.
Surprisingly, India’s government has not attempted to disable these websites.
Indian defence and intelligence officials dismissed these activities as the handiwork of Pakistani adolescents who did not having backing from Pakistani military and intelligence forces. However, B. Raman, former additional secretary, Cabinet Secretariat, cautioned that India should not underestimate the havoc that can be wrought even by unorganized teenage hackers.
India’s security establishment has also ignored information warfare capabilities possessed by Islamic militant organizations. Rand Corporation recently warned: “Osama bin Laden’s Egyptian followers can immediately cripple the information infrastructures of Russia and India.” Clark Staten, Executive Director, Emergency Response and Research Institute, Chicago, warned that Ikhwan al Muslimoon, Jamaat Islami, Hizb-ut-Tahrir, Khilafah, Izz al-Din Al-Kassam, and Nida’ul Islam had developed offensive capabilities in information warfare.
More serious than Pakistan and Islamic militants is the threat posed by China. According to Timothy Thomas of the US Army’s Foreign Military Studies Office in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, China’s leaders reckon that it can achieve hegemony in Asia only by integrating information warfare into its geopolitical strategies. Thomas stated: “China is quickly integrating the latest information warfare techniques into its People’s War concept. This development has been ignored by the West but will have far-reaching strategic and operational implications.”
In mid-1999, China established a special task force on information warfare composed of senior politicians, military officers and academics, headed by Xie Guang, Vice-Minister of the Commission of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense. Other key members are Fu Quanyou, Chief of China’s General Staff, Yuan Banggen, Head of General Staff Directorate, Major General Wang Pufeng, Senior Colonel Wang Baocun, Shen Weiguang, Wang Xiaodong, Qi Jianguo, Liang Zhenxing, Yang Minqing, Dai Qingmin, Leng Bingling, Wang Yulin, and Zhao Wenxiang.
This task force has prepared detailed plans to cripple the civilian information infrastructures of Taiwan, USA, India, Japan and South Korea. Qi Jianguo and Dai Qingmin have formulated a comprehensive scheme: First, China would not attack military or political targets in these countries but would target their financial, banking, electrical supply, water, sewage, and telecommunications networks. Second, Chinese companies would establish business links with private companies in these countries. After carrying on legitimate business for some time, they would insert malicious computer codes and viruses over commercial e-mail services. Third, the viruses and malicious codes would be sent through computers in universities in third countries so that they could not be traced back to China but would be thought to be the handiwork of adolescent pranksters. Fourth, the attacks would be launched when the political leadership of the target countries was preoccupied with election campaigns. Leng Bingling, Wang Yulin, and Zhao Wenxiang are in charge of mobilizing students and businessmen to support their military’s cyberattacks against civilian targets in these countries.
China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has conducted several field exercises recently. An “Informaticized People’s Warfare Network Simulation Exercise” was conducted in Echeng District of Hubei Province. Five hundred soldiers simulated cyberattacks on the telecommunications, electricity, finance, and television sectors of Taiwan, India, Japan and South Korea. Ten functions were rehearsed in another exercise in Xian in Jinan Military Region: planting information mines; conducting information reconnaissance; changing network data; releasing information bombs; dumping information garbage; disseminating propaganda; applying information deception; releasing clone information; organizing information defense; and establishing network spy stations. In Datong, forty PLA specialists are preparing methods of seizing control of networks of commercial internet service providers in Taiwan, India, Japan and South Korea. They held demonstrations for Beijing Region Military Command, Central Military Commission, and General Staff Directorate.
In October, Chief of General Staff Fu Quanyou presided over an exercise in Lanzhou and Shenyang Military Regions which simulated electronic confrontation with countries south and west of Gobi Desert. This focused on electronic reconnaissance, counter-reconnaissance, electronic interference and counter-interference. It tested the battle readiness of PLA’s command automation systems, command operations, situation maps, audio and graphics processes and controls, and data encryption systems. Smaller exercises were carried out in July in Chengdu Military Region and in August in Guangzhou Military Region.
PLA has also enlisted support from universities. It established the Communications Command Academy in Wuhan, capital of Hubei Province, in collaboration with Hubei’s engineering universities. The Navy Engineering College, headed by Shao Zijun, also in Wuhan, is collaborating on secret projects on information warfare with Communications Command Academy.
PLA also established the Information Engineering University, headed by Major General Zhou Rongting, in Zhengzhou, capital of Henan Province. It did this by taking over and combining Henan’s civilian Institute of Information Engineering, Electronic Technology College, and Survey and Mapping College. This will specialize in remote image information engineering, satellite-navigation and positioning engineering, and map data banks of the regions from India to Indo-China.
PLA also established the Science and Engineering University, headed by Major General Si Laiyi, by combining the civilian Institute of Communications Engineering, the Institute of the Engineering Corps, the Air Force’s Meteorology Institute, and the Research Institute of General Staff Headquarters. Si Laiyi attracted over 400 civilian professors from universities all over China to teach PLA officers electronic engineering, information engineering, network engineering, and command automation engineering. He also announced the establishment of a new Institute of Computer and Command Automation and persuaded sixty experts of Chinese origin settled in the West to return to work there.
A fourth PLA institute is the National Defense Science and Technology University in Changsha, under direct supervision of Central Military Commission, where the “Yin He” series of supercomputers have been developed. In mid-1999, sixty senior officers studied reconnaissance, monitoring technology, precision guidance technology, command automation, and electronic warfare against countries located to the south and southwest of China. Three hundred colonels are currently undergoing training here.
To counter cyberthreats from China, Pakistan and militant Islamic groups, India’s government should immediately establish a national center on information systems security. It should tap the expertise of universities and private software and internet companies. In addition to the government and defence sectors it should cater to the banking sector, stock exchanges, telecom and internet networks, power and water supplies, and transportation. It should be structured on the lines of the US President’s Commission on Critical Infrastructure Protection which was created by President Clinton in 1996 and in which several US corporations and universities are partners — principally IBM, Dell, BellSouth, GTE, and Carnegie Mellon University. USA’s Computer Emergency Response Team is a joint venture of Carnegie Mellon, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Defense Information Systems Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation.
India should also provide support to the numerous dissident Chinese hacker groups formed to avenge the Tienanmen Square massacre. One is headed by Lemon Li who operates from St. Nazare, France. Another is headed by Michael Ming and functions out of College Station, Texas. The most successful hackers have been Yellow Pages and Blondes. Blondes was founded by Blondie Wong who operates from Toronto. Mao Zedong’s henchmen had killed his parents. But since he was a follower of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Wong decided to use only peaceful means to overthrow the Beijing regime. The Bangkok chapter of Blondes is headed by an Englishwoman, Tracey Kinchen, who was earlier an MI5 agent. Her team disabled a PLA spy satellite by sending spurious signals using cellular modems. Another Englishwoman, Ashton Tyler Baines, heads the Kowloon chapter of Blondes. Her team has launched over 72,000 cyberattacks against PLA. Baines claimed: “Blondes and Yellow Pages have already placed over 40 computer operators as moles inside PLA’s cyberspace divisions. We can infiltrate, alter and even crash their communications satellites, space program, supercomputers, and networks. We are putting in backdoors and writing bad code into their servers. We have already infected off-site copies of their CD-ROMs.”
Could that provide the Indian government with some ideas of how to counter a Chinese infotech atttack?