The Hindu : Front Page : Now, a Pune base for Net's cyber cops

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Nov 26, 2006
ePaper

Front Page

Front Page

Now, a Pune base for Net's cyber cops

Anand Parthasarathy

Symantec opens world's first round-the-clock security response lab

PHOTO: SANJAY BHALERAO

KEEPING TABS: Specialists at work in the world's first 24x7 Security Response Lab set up by Symantec in Pune last week.

Pune: Cyber crime never sleeps — so the crime-busters have to work round-the-clock too. Which is why U.S.-based Net security leader Symantec, best known for the Norton anti-virus products, has just set up in Pune, its first "24 x 7" Security Response Lab. It is equipped to keep tabs on the world's Internet traffic, monitoring 40,000 of its own sensors buried in cyberspace, across 180 countries, tracking 150 million anti-virus systems — and sending two million dummy e-mails to test the Web's defences.

The lab work is done in four shifts by Indian security specialists, backed by Symantec's 2000-strong India-based development muscle.

Why Pune? "Because of the strong security expertise and programming skills available in India," explains Anil Chakravarthy, vice-president for India Technical Operations. "We have groups here who are experts in anti-fraud operations," says Vincent Weafer, Symantec's U.S.-based Senior Director (Global Operations).

In fact, Pune engineers have filed four global patents in recent months in the area of Net security. And Vishal Dhupar, Symantec India's Managing Director, feels: "The India-based Security Response Lab is a major contributor to our global response to Net threats — and will also help us track the security landscape in the country from a global vantage point."

The Pune Centre will work in tandem with response labs in seven other locations spread across North America, Europe and the Far East as they try and neutralise viruses, spam (unsolicited mail), phishing (trying to steal sensitive information) and `bots' (robot-like invaders into unsuspecting computers)... often within minutes of the threats appearing.

The Pune lab is the only one that works 24 hours, 365 days of the year.

And one early benefit of housing a global Security Response Lab in Pune: Symantec shared with The Hindu the numbers from what is arguably the first systematic survey carried out on the Indian Net Security scene: The country has the highest ratio in the world (76 per cent) of outgoing spam or junk mail, to legitimate e-mail traffic. India's home PC owners are the most targeted sector of its 37.7 million Internet users: Over 86 per cent of all attacks, mostly via `bots' were aimed at lay surfers with Mumbai and Delhi emerging as the top two cities for such vulnerability. India has now joined the dubious list of the world's top 15 countries hosting "phishing" sites which aims at stealing confidential information such as passwords and credit card details.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Front Page