IT ministry to use hackers against hackers
KARACHI- Ministry of information technology and telecommunication has planned hiring hackers to confront cyber attacks on government’s websites and silicon networking, almost crashing the country’s cyber gateway.
The decision came at a meeting held a few days back to set up a Working Group for Network Security – one of the steps to counter hackers’ moves. The group is composed of ministry officials, intelligence agencies sleuths and representatives from private sector internet service providers (ISPs) and software houses of the country.
“It will be among one of the group’s tasks to positively use hackers against their counterparts’ threats to our cyber system,” said a top ministry official, who declined to be named. “The group’s objective is to outline measures and steps, which can ensure cyber safety in the country”.
“You can terms it a professionals’ forum with objectives to oversee and drive the development of network security in Pakistan for the threat assessment, defensive and offensive mechanisms, viruses and Trojans etc,” he explained.
The Pakistan Telecommunications Company Limited (PTCL) has come under fire for over a month for attacks on government’s websites and networks, which PTCL say are responsible for Denial of Service (DoS) attacks, the ISPs are facing as a result.
The ministry of information had set up a Cyber Wing last month before the telecom ministry constituted Working Group, to counter virus attacks by Indian hackers.
The hackers attacked several government departments’ and ministries websites with virus-contaminated emails, the most damaging result of some of which resulted in suspension of Karachi Stock Exchange’s website for a few hours.
When asked, the official refused to draw any similarities between information ministry’s Cyber Wing and IT ministry’s Working Group. The latter will not be restricted to counter virus attacks by Indian hackers. It will also contemplate ways to regulate all the cyber-related activities in the country including cyber crimes.
At the initial stage, the group will discuss growing threat of insecure networks, intrusions, web page defacements, cyber terrorism, formulation of policies and guidelines. It will as well discuss encouraging ideas related to strong authentication mechanism such as smart cards, PKI, biometrics, Kerberos, tokens, digital certificates etc, discouraging insecure network protocols and encourage encryption for network protocols.
Source: The News
Date:4/22/2003
” 
” 
” 
” 
” 
