Tag Archive for india

India

India Draft National Encryption Policy

Cryptography has emerged as a powerful tool that can help to assure the confidentiality, non-repudiability and integrity of information in transit and storage as well as to authenticate the asserted identity of individuals and computer systems. Encryption technology was traditionally deployed most widely to protect the confidentiality of military and diplomatic communication. With the advent of computer and Internet revolution and online applications as well as the recent innovations in the science of encryption, a new market for cryptographic products in E-commerce & E-Governance civilian applications has rapidly developed. Communication and E-commerce applications such as electronic mail and electronic fund transfer, which require secure means of communication, make extensive use of encryption for securing the information and authentication.

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News

Feds Tell Law Enforcement to Look Out for Dead Body Bombs

In the first weeks of 2013, police officers were combing through a bloody scene in the Indian state of Jharkhand where a dozen security personnel had died in a shootout with local rebels. The Naxalite fighters, who promote a Maoist ideology through their ongoing guerrilla conflict with the Indian government, had killed the men, including five Central Reserve Police Force members, in a gun battle days before. When local villagers and police tried to remove the bodies, a bomb went off killing four more people. After the incident, a group of doctors in nearby Ranchi were performing an autopsy on one of the bodies when they encountered something metal lodged inside the body. A bomb squad was called in and an explosive device triggered by shifts in pressure that had been sewn into the police officer’s body was successfully defused.

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Department of Homeland Security

(U//FOUO) DHS HUJI Claims Responsibility for India High Court Bombing

According to multiple media reports, on 7 September an explosion occurred inside the reception area of the Delhi High Court in New Delhi, India at approximately 10:00am local time. The blast killed at least 11 people and injured some 76 others. Indian authorities reported to the press that the explosives were inside a briefcase left in a reception area in between the security gates of the High Court. India’s National Security Guard Director indicated that the device contained ammonium nitrate, which was also used in the most recent bomb against the court complex on 25 May. Harakat-ul-Jihad al-Islami (HUJI) claimed responsibility for the blast in an e-mail message and demanded that India repeal the death sentence of Afzal Guru, who was convicted of attacking the Indian Parliament building in 2001 and is awaiting execution.

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India

Indian Karnataka Lokayukta (People’s Commissioner) Report on Mining Industry Corruption

A 466-page summary of a more than 25,000-page report compiled by the Indian government’s Karnataka Lokayukta or People’s Commissioner who investigated years of illegal activities in the Indian mining sector, including widespread corruption, bribery and the exportation of illicit iron ore worth more than $3 billion. The report has met with widespread controversy due to its singling out of a number of prominent billionaires in the Indian mining industry.

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India, Pakistan

Indian Government Dossier Linking Mumbai Terrorists to Pakistani ISI

Documentation released by the Government of India’s Press Information Bureau with this description: “A report which appeared in the media today states that the Chicago trial of the 2008 Mumbai attacks will be held from the 16th of this month. The report also states that the federal prosecutors indicted some more suspects last week in this case. Information available with the Government of India on the five persons named as accused in the second charge-sheet filed by the United States Government in the case is given in the annexure.”

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Department of State

U.S. State Department OSAC Maoist/Naxalite Threat to the U.S. Private Sector

OSAC constituents operating in India face a multitude of threats, many of which are difficult to evaluate from a security standpoint. Often times, the international media will mimic the hyperbolic Indian news industry and sensationalize a security concern, resulting in significant private sector hand-wringing. One such example of this is the Communist Party of India-Maoist insurgency in India, popularly known as the Naxalite movement. For instance, Naxalites ambushed and killed 75 members of India’s Central Reserve Police Force on patrol in Chhattisgarh state on April 6, 2010. The disaster triggered alarmist headlines around the world. A headline in the British Independent on April 8 screamed “Who are the Naxalites and will they topple the Indian Government?” The attack also brought renewed attention to the Naxalites from publications such as The Economist and The New York Times, which typically publish maps showing the current “extent” of the Naxal problem alongside their analyses. Even the Prime Minister of India Manmohan Singh is on record as saying that the Naxalites are the greatest threat India faces.

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Open Source Center

(U//FOUO) Open Source Center India Text Message Social Networking Service

An Indian social messaging platform that enables users to build mobile communities is drawing parallels to Twitter. Called SMS GupShup [gossip], this Twitter-like service allows users to create communities. With nearly 26 million users, the platform claims to capture a significant chunk of total SMS traffic in India. According to the cofounder of SMS GupShup, Beerud Sheth, there are over 550 million mobile phone users in India and only 50 million web users. “With a 10 to 1 mobile to PC ratio and SMS serving as the most popular communications platform, the market is ripe for SMS Gupshup,” he said. Launched in April 2007, SMS GupShup is currently processing over 480 million messages a month and accounts for nearly five percent of all texts sent within India (techtrunch.com, 15 December 2009).

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Threats and Takedown Notices

BP Uses Outsourced Indian Company to Demand Removal of Document from Public Intelligence

On August 5, 2010 we received a message from a Riyas Paramban who purportedly represents the Information Technology and Services (IT&S) Digital Security Alert Centre of BP plc. The notice requests that we remove a document concerning BP’s use of RFID technology for tracking not only equipment, but its own employees, specifying that the material is “BP Confidential and disclosure of this document may lead to security breach.”

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New York

NYPD Law Enforcement Sensitive Mumbai Attack Analysis

On the evening of November 26, 2008, ten (10) terrorists executed multiple coordinated attacks using automatic weapons and hand grenades on various “soft targets”, such as hotels and restaurants, in Mumbai, India. The operational modus operandi of this terrorist attack constitutes a major shift in the traditional terrorist tactics of using suicide operatives and planted explosive devices, to the execution of a well planned “commando” type military assault using automatic weapons, hand grenades and urban combat tactics, intended to inflict the maximum number of casualties.

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