Similar to how festivals are celebrated in the Indian subcontinent almost throughout the year, hackers of the Indian-Subcontinent are not far behind. During the month of August when two countries are celebrating their Independence days, hackers from these countries are busy hacking into the servers and defacing them with patriotic slogans.
Every hack is celebrated by the warring factions, however there is one community which faces the brunt of this hackathon ie. the server admin community. Admin from both these countries are the ones who not only have to answer their peers and superiors but also have to burn the midnight oil and keep their networks safe from unauthorized intrusions.
For some hackers is fun and for some patriotism, but they have to understand one thing that their acts are not at all relished by the admins. Hackers may try to push across their message but at the cost of a poor admin.
Judging from the number of defacements which take place, its not difficult to understand that even after so many years IT security is lax . Blaming the admins for decisions taken by his superiors are incorrect and inappropriate. Every few months we come out with statistics stating that so many hacks have happened, one needs to apply this patch , these are the standards to be maintained , however, the ground reality is very much different.
If 14th and 15th August are to be considered as a grim reminder of the state of IT Security in the Indian subcontinent then what can be said about the organizations and the cyber-espionage operations which take place at a very steady pace?
Indian subcontinent is a huge market in each and every aspect of business and this essentially makes it a lucrative one for hackers / state actors to penetrate through the defenses and gain a foothold into these organizations.
Hackathon of August should always reminds us of the days to come , defacement is what you see but what is not seen are the targeted attacks which take place on regular basis.
