Cut to 2008, and the agency that was to play the pivotal role in implementing these recommendations, the National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO), has just one eight-man team, led by a brigadier from the army’s Signals wing, to deal with all aspects of cyber-terrorism. Had the recommendations been implemented and the structures put in place, Indian Mujahideen would have had to deal with a very different deterrent and investigative arm when it shot off the e-mails spewing hatred and threats.
Instead, with the NTRO sitting on a massive budget but no sanctions for manpower, the IB and RAW were forced to set up their own capabilities with their limited resources. Result: a criminal duplication of effort while the agency mandated by a Group of Ministers to act as the repository of all technical intelligence twiddled its thumbs. Worse, a draft bill drawn up by NTRO and the law ministry to provide a legal cover to Indian intelligence-hackers never went to Parliament.
So, when the IM first hacked into Khalsa College’s wi-fi network in Matunga to send its first e-mail to the media, it could not be traced on time as the ats, the local police station and the Mumbai police’s cyber crime cell dithered over taking charge. Finally, a case was registered with the Matunga police station and then transferred to the cyber crime cell. The e-mail sent minutes before the Delhi blasts met a similar fate.
The fact is police cyber cells have to depend on private professionals. "What’s missing is a centralised internet traffic monitoring system," says Pukhraj Singh of Torrid Networks, a Noida-based information security firm. "Forestalling such attacks will depend on the Indian cyber-forensic team’s technical and linguistic expertise to monitor such sites."
The government’s cyber-forensic departments have woefully limited capabilities. Singh and his colleague Dhruv Soi recently found out that as many as 100 of the 250 wi-fi networks tested were insecure, waiting to be hacked. That’s all terrorists lurking in cyberspace can ask for.
By Saikat Datta and Debarshi Dasgupta
