The Hindu Business Line : Incidence of Web site defacement down in September

THE number of incidents of defacement of Indian Web sites across popular domains such as `.com' and `.in' dropped substantially in September to 258, from a high of 796 in the previous month, according to Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In).

With this, the total number of Web defacement cases tracked in the first nine months of the current calendar stands at 3,006.

Last month, the reported incidents of Web site defacements had almost touched the January level — when the number of hacking attempts (pegged at 798) was the highest recorded during the year.

Web site defacement, a form of malicious hacking, involves vandalising of a Web site. Often, the malicious hacker replaces the site's original content with a specific political or social message or erases the content from the site entirely, relying on known security vulnerabilities for access to the site's content.

This is done by taking advantage of new or common exploitable security holes in the Web server technology - the software that stores and sends Web pages back to the Web browser.

Of the cases reported in September, as many as 200 pertained to the popular `.com' domain. Last month, this number stood at about 614. In September, 25 defacements occurred in `.in' domain, 20 in `.org' and one in `.info' domains.

In contrast, August saw 69 incidents in `.org', 47 in `.net', 28 in `.co.in', and seven in `.info' domains.

On a year-on-year comparison, the incidence seen in September 2005 was higher than the seventy-two reported in the same period last year.

CERT-In, which records this data, was constituted in January last year to tackle any possible hacking or virus attacks on the information systems including the vital networks such as power, railways, aviation, and defence - and provides reactive and proactive services to enhance cyber-security in India.

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