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It has been three weeks since the website of the Central Bureau of Investigation was hacked into by a group of suspected Pakistanis who call themselves 'Pakistani Cyber Army'. The website still remains inactive. With the state's premier investigation agency's website hacked into and remaining inactive for so long, CBI says that they are putting in place security audit measures so that such an incident won't occur again. Independent Information Technology companies had repeatedly warned the government about the vulnerability of its websites, but their advice was not heeded. "We at the National Anti-Hacking Group had been warning the government since 2003, that their websites were vulnerable. We hacked into the government hosted websites and later told them what we had done, just so that they could understand how easy it was. Since the government never took action on any of our recommendations, we dropped the campaign. Today, all our warnings have come true. ...

News Taken From mumbaimirror.com, The news is as follows... Thane Crime Branch has set up an inquiry into the matter and a team to track down Sachin Loke after reading the Mumbai Mirror exposé A day after Mumbai Mirror exposed how small-time detectives and software professionals offer phone-tapping services illegally, the Thane Crime Branch set up an inquiry into the matter. Mumbai Mirror had on Friday done an exposé on how a Thane-based detective, Sachin Loke, helped us tap the phone of an Indian Police Service officer-turned-lawyer Y P Singh (see box). Two police teams have been put on the job to track down the detective whose whereabouts are still unknown. “ The day Mumbai Mirror carried the exposé, our police commissioner, S P S Yadav, directed Crime Branch officers to probe the matter thoroughly ,” said a Thane Crime Branch officer. Two teams, including officers of the Cyber Crime Cell, have been set up under the aegis of Deputy Commissioner of Police Datta Karale. “...

The past year reached a new record high for bogus e-mails that clog people's inboxes and can release damaging and costly viruses on computers. Nearly 90 percent of sent e-mail is a ruse to rip off unsuspecting Internet users, according to data released by the computer security firm Symantec. The firm projects 95 billion e-mails will be sent in 2010, an average of 400 per Internet user, according to data culled from Symantec and Internet World Stats, a marketing research firm. The number of phishing e-mails, those that hunt out passwords that can steal sensitive and financial information, increased 1.4 percent compared with 2009, according to Symantec. The news is especially troubling since e-commerce sales reached $200 billion in 2007, the latest data available from the U.S. Census Bureau. “The fact is that these spammers are getting better and better on exploiting people,” said Jim Fisher, owner of Excel Computer Services in Florence. “They keep ratcheting up their capabilities.” ...

It seems that Facebook has now extended a hand of friendship toward China. Mark Zuckerberg has announced that he is going on a vacation to China with his girlfriend. His itinerary includes meetings with some of China’s biggest high-tech executives, signaling his intention to extend the reach of his social network to the world's largest population of internet users. Industry analysts say Facebook will face tough competition from state-supported companies, as it is entering a market where 68% has been captured by sites like Ren-Ren. The competition is fierce, presenting challenges similar to those faced by companies like Google. While Facebook may not be making a formal friend request to China, Zuckerberg has been studying Mandarin daily with one-hour language lessons.

Researchers at Mocana, a security technology firm in San Francisco, recently demonstrated the ease with which they could hack into a popular Internet-ready HDTV model. They exploited a vulnerability in the software that displays websites on the TV, allowing them to control the information sent to the television. This flaw enabled them to create fake screens for sites like Amazon.com, prompting users to enter their credit card details. Additionally, they could monitor data sent from the TV to other sites. "Consumer electronics makers seem to be rushing to connect all their products to the Internet," said Adrian Turner, Mocana's CEO. "The design teams at these companies have not put enough thought into security." Mocana, along with similar firms, sells technology to protect devices and often highlights potential threats. This test underscores a warning from security experts: the rise of Internet TVs, smartphones, and other web-ready gadgets creates new opportun...