Naavi.org

Cyber Issues have never dominated an election process as much as it now has the US Presidential elections of 2016. Whether Trump will win or Hillary will prevail depend on how the Cyber activities in US have affected the electoral minds.

The early use of “Information Technology” in election was in India in the form of the electronic voting machines (EVM). Naavi.org has discussed the issue of Cyber Law Compliance in EVMs in the past and also suggested methods of overcoming the compliance issues.  (Check Here).

There were PIL complaint filed in this regard and a demonstration of the hackability of the EVM for which one activist was even arrested. Even Mr Subramanya Swamy had undertaken some activity in discussing the legality of EVM usage. But nothing came out of these discussions and now this discussion is in the past.

Some improvements have been made and EVMs have been accepted in Indian electoral process with whatever manual checks and balances that have been built to prevent its misuse.

In more recent days, the point of discussion in India has been on the use of Social Media for election campaign. Mr Modi was the first to make effective use of “Social Media” to take his messages across and “Digital Campaigning” became an integral part of election campaigning in India. Out of the other parties, AAP also made good use of social media to carry its message across.

What we are now seeing in US elections is however a different type of discussion.

First the discussion was Ms Hillary Clinton’s inability to secure her official e-mails while she was the Secretary of State and her use of a private e-mail server. This was exposed with WikiLeaks hacking into the server and revealing the e-mail correspondence for public gaze. Obviously, this contained many e-mails in which US policies on international relations and other private correspondence which all revealed what her rivals called her duplicity and political maneuvering. This has become an issue of defining her character and her suitability for Presidency.

Ms Clinton’s team have accused the hands of Russian hackers in this hack indicating that the issue is more like a Cyber war to influence the results of the election in favour of Mr Donald Trump. No body is saying that the e-mails are not existing but they are only complaining that they have been revealed in a wrong manner.

However, what complicated the issue is that Ms Clinton after receiving a notice from FBI on handing over the e-mails for investigation proceeded to delete over 33000 e-mails. This directly amounted to tampering of evidence and became an independent offence in itself completely unrelated to the content of these e-mails. Some of the e-mails which have surfaced now also indicate that there was full knowledge that the e-mails contained incriminating evidence and were deliberately deleted.

It appears judicially infeasible to defend this action unless the Judiciary turns a blind eye for political reasons.

Additionally, in an unrelated investigation on “Child Pornography” in one of the laptops of a person whose wife was an aide of Ms Hillary Clinton, a set of e-mails (650,000 in number) related to Ms Clinton seems to have surfaced. The speculation is that these e-mails were kept as a back up to secure the person against any adverse action by Ms Clinton. (i.o.w. as a tool of self defense by blackmail).

The fact that FBI had reportedly closed the case of e-mals earlier and has now indicated reopening of the case indicates that there may be some substance in all the allegations. Also the FBI wanted to hedge itself for a possible Trump win which could make FBI complicit in a criminal offence for its earlier action of closing the case prematurely.

The developments indicate

a) negligence in securing e-communications of a Government official,

b) hacking by a foreign Government and hactivists, tampering of evidence,

c) child pornography etc., all different kinds of Cyber Crimes.

Besides there could be corruption issues revealed in the relationship between donations made to Clinton Foundation and the Quid Pro Quo if any.

If Mr Clinton wins then there will be further discussion on covering up by the Government or Impeachment of the President, both of which will occupy public discussion space for years to come.

We in India have heard of several serious allegations against the previous UPA Government of similar nature. But these have taken years now in investigation by CBI without reaching a conclusion. But possibly US justice could be faster.

But it is difficult to expect the US DOJ going against the elected president. If Mr Trump wins, whatever FBI or DOJ does will be dubbed as “Vindictiveness” as we frequently hear in India.

The next 7 days to the election, it is expected that WikiLeaks could be coming out with more revelations that could damage Hillary Clinton and hence the stock markets are already indicating the probable victory for Donald Trump.

Whatever may be the political outcome, the developments will be a watershed moment in national elections and every other country including India needs to take note that foreign Governments may use their Cyber War capabilities to change the electoral outcome in enemy countries.

India is exposed to similar risks from China which in supporting Pakistan would like Congress to come back to power at the center and Mr Modi to lose. Probably planning may already be in progress in Chinese Cyber War rooms and we may see a test run of it during the next January polls.

I therefore caution the Central Government to take necessary counter measures to ensure that China cannot interfere in the Indian Electoral process by hacking into either the Jandhan yojana, the NPCI or the GST system.

Do we have the Skill and the Will? ….or do we continue with “All is Well” and “Chalta Hai” attitude…?..only time will tell.

Naavi

Two incidents reported yesterday in two different hospitals highlight the risk in automation of health care processes and the criticality of information security.

In one of the incidents, a virus left three hospitals in disarray and cancellation of all routine operations and outpatient appointments. (Read the Story Here)

The Virus infection affected two hospitals namely the Northern Lincolnshire and Goole NHS Foundation Trust (NLAG). Due to use of some shared services, a third hospital United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust (ULHT) also had to cancel operations.

Hopefully this is more like a “Denial of Medical Services” and unless some of the cancelled operations were time critical, the damage may be contained with some inconvenience.

But the incident highlights how a normal information security incident gets into “life Threatening” mode in a health care scenario making Information security that much more of a critical care issue.

There was another incident which is also of concern which indicates how some times human intervention should always be at standby when we use automation in health care.

This incident (See Report here) occured during a robotic surgery when a laser beam being used in surgery caught fire at Tokyo Medical University Hospital. The cause of the fire was unfortunately farting (passing of gas) by the woman during the surgery. The gas being inflammable was ignited by the laser beam and caused severe burns in the 30 year old women undergoing ovarian surgery.

This fire incident may not directly be called an “Information Security Incident” but it must be recognized that the robotic surgery was not equipped to stop the laser beam instantly when the surrounding environment changed due to an unforeseen incident.

The incident is similar to the automatic brake system of a Google car failing when a crash is imminent. It must be attributed to the failure of the safety system in the automation of the health care process.

This could eventually be considered as “Negligence” of the “System” and the company manufacturing the equipment and the user (hospital) may be held negligent as an “Intermediary” and have to bear the liabilities.

When HDPSA is drafted, it will incorporate certain aspects of the “Telemedicine Act” which was once contemplated in India and abandoned which had elaborate provisions for the medical equipment manufacturers to be registered and monitored.

Naavi

The Information Technology Act 2000 which was substantially amended in 2008 (ITA2008) and presently under another revision, was enacted as a “Special Act” that was applicable to “Electronic Documents”. In view of the international obligations, only the IPR regulations like the Copyright Act was kept as an overriding provision in case of any conflict. Otherwise wherever an “electronic Document” was a subject matter of law, ITA 2008 was considered as the final law to resolve conflicts if any.

ITA 2000/8 was generous to extend its provisions to every other law and did not negate any law since Section 4 simply stated that “Wherever any law requires a document to be in writing, it can be rendered in electronic form”. Similarly, Section 5 extended the validity of a “Signature” by stating that “Wherever any law requires a document to be signed, the requirement can be fulfilled in the form of digital signature as defined under section 3 (later extended to electronic signature defined under section 3A)”

The ITA 2008 made many provisions under “Data Protection” which indirectly provided protection to “Privacy” though  there was no other legislation providing privacy protection in India. There were civil and criminal remedies and the Adjudication proceedings to render justice. By defining “Health Information” as “Sensitive personal Information”, it was also prescribed that there had to be “Reasonable Security Practices”  to protect the Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability of such information when Body Corporates handled the same. Under the concept of “Due Diligence” under Section 79, all the known best principles of Privacy protection used in International practice were made part of ITA 2008.

Now therefore when HDPSA is enacted with the specific provisions that are meant to protect the privacy and security of health information there could be several overlapping provisions between HDPSA and ITA 2008.

Ensuring that the conflicts are avoided not only in the provisions but in enforcement would be one of the prime considerations of the new law makers who draft HDPSA.

For example, “Hospitals or Health Care Providers” under HDPSA may be considered as “Body Corporates under Section 43A of ITA 2008” if they are companies. But if they are “Trusts” or a medical practitioner who is not an “association of individuals”, there could be a debate on whether it falls under the explanation of Section 43A which states

“body corporate” means any company and includes a firm, sole proprietorship or other association of individuals engaged in commercial or professional activities”

On the other hand, whether any of the covered entities under HDPSA are considered “Intermediaries” would also be debated.

Another point of debate would be while ITA 2000/8 is restricted to electronic documents, will HDPSA be available for protecting privacy when data is breached in non electronic form?… Will the security cover physical security of privacy documents in paper or voice form?

There will also be a debate…When things go wrong, is there a remedy under HDPSA with its own adjudicator or is the remedy under ITA 2000/8 with the adjudicators appointed under Section 46 of ITA 2000/8?

It is therefore necessary to understand the possible areas of conflict and steer clear of collision possibilities at the drafting stage itself.

Hope the ministries will take necessary steps

Naavi

A small mistake by a “Bug Bounty” hunter who had perhaps no intention of committing a crime has landed him in a serious problem with the law enforcement in USA.

Mr Meetkumar Hiteshbhai Desai, obviously of Indian origin from a place called “Maricopa” in USA, (Arizona) is reported to have developed an exploit for showing a vulnerability in the ios system which could have earned him a reward under the bug bounty program.

See Report here

Unfortunately, when he wanted to share a benign version of the exploit with his friends which was meant to display a pop up in their phones, he actually shared a version which automatically dialled 911 number and hang up. This resulted in a DDOS attack on the 911 system which is the public service for emergencies (like 100).

Mr Desai has now been charged of an offence which is equivalent to a “Cyber Terrorism” though he can plead “No Malicious intention”. But his negligence and the problem he might have caused will probably result in some punishment which should be a lesson to many persons who dream to be “Ethical hackers” .

I sincerely hope that the US police would understand the situation and limit the punishment to some public service. Hopefully he will be careful from now on and not indulge in such irresponsible activities in future.

Naavi

In a shameful security lapse by the Jail authorities, 8 dreaded convicted SIMI terrorists have reportedly escaped from a Bhopal prison considered one of the secure jails, after overpowering and killing just one guard. The guard was strangulated in a hand combat and not through any sophisticated weapons, indicating the primitive security that the jail had.

See the report here

There is no doubt that the escape was made possible by corruption in the system and hopefully the corrupt persons will be brought to book.

In the meantime, it is important for the serious professionals in the Law Enforcement System to completely revamp the security systems in our jails and make it impossible for such escapes to happen.

There was a time when private sector used to hire retired Policemen for their security thinking that they are good in preventing thefts and burglaries in the industrial premises. Later when the industry realized that the most precious asset they have is in the form of “Information” and not in the form of physical assets, they started hiring “Electronic Security Experts” to manage security and today they have risen to the ranks of “CISO”s in the industry and occupy a coveted post.

Even in the Information Security scenario, physical security is an important component and therefore there are either specialized physical security manpower assisting the CISO or the CISOs themselves are experts in physical security also. Since most of the Physical security gadgets today are in fact “Electronic Devices”, there is a lot of “information Security Expertise” required even to manage the “Physical Security”.

Now that private sector has developed an expertise in preventing unauthorized persons gaining entry into a secure physical premises, it is time to use this expertise in reverse to prevent unauthorized exit of people from the so called “Jails” .

We therefore look forward to the LEA immediately reinforcing the security of Jails by appointing an expert corporate CISO and install the various physical security gadgets that can prevent unauthorized escape of inmates of a jail.

First and the most important security measure that needs to be taken for high security prisoners such as terrorists is to monitor them on a 24×7 basis through a GPS collar or an implant device which cannot be easily removed without raising an alarm at multiple centers with multiple security levels. These devices should be monitored at all times even when the prisoners are sleeping and intelligence should be built in to identify any unusual patterns of movements of the prisoners.

Raising the perimeter wall, implanting electronic surveillance systems like “Mines on the Walls” to monitor any attempted scaling of the walls as well as CCTV cameras are normal security measures which should anyway be in place.

The security should be built with the “Defense in Depth” concept with multiple layers separated by mantraps, turnstiles and other similar devices which make it impossible for anybody to force their way out without raising alarm.

I wish the Jail authorities go through the available systems for prison security  (Check here) worldwide and incorporate them in our country too. (Also check this Report)

There is no doubt that the best secured prisons will also be broken some day. But it requires that much more expertise to break the Techno-Physical security systems and such attempts have to come from outside hackers which the SOC of the prison can try to tackle.

Probably this should also create lot more job opportunities for IS persons who want to serve the nation. Man of them may take up such assignments out of their love for the nation if  Mr Modi makes a call.

In the meantime, I urge some corporate security teams to offer their services to secure the local prisons on a voluntary basis under Corproate Social Responsibilities….. Let’s see if there is a political will.

Naavi

A few months back, Corporation Bank suddenly changed its account numbering system and issued new account numbers to all its customers.  While doing so, it was expected that the Bank would prepare it’s systems to manage the transition by accepting old account numbers for a certain period of time so that if any remittances are received with the old account numbers, the amount would be automatically credited to the new accounts.

This could have been easily done with the maintenance of a mapping database which mapped the new numbers to the old numbers and initiating a process of checking of the data base whenever an error is logged. It could have been a manual intervention at this stage also if required.

Unfortunately, the system engineers did not plan the transition properly and hence NEFT remittances received in the new account number were rejected by the system. The old numbers are still getting accepted indicating that some systems have not yet been updated.

The branch does not seem to have a clue on this error and are unable to provide a solution. They seem to think that there could be problems in interbank remittances but not in corporation bank to corporation bank remittances.

I would like to draw the attention of the Bank to this problem which besides being a customer service issue could also be looked at as a “Denial of Service Issue”. If remittances are not received, businesses may not be able to conduct their regular business transactions and the ripple effect of this would be on many of the Bank’s customers as well as the business associates of the customers.

It is possible that the problem may be at the Switch maintained by NPCI or IDRBT where there may be a cache of account particulars which is rejecting the transactions due to the mismatch between the new account number and the names associated with the old account numbers.

I hope that the IT personnel of the Bank will be alert to this note and set things right at the earliest.

Naavi