IRCTC must gear up for targeted attacks; warn Experts, post Server Hack

IRCTC must gear up for targeted attacks; warn Experts, post Server Hack 

Hyderabad: As soon as the news of hacking of IRCTC site spread like wildfire in social media today, several users of the country’s biggest online transaction site have begun to pour in their concerns. They are worried about their card data that might have been compromised.

People, who have been tracking online frauds feel, that this is something that is waiting to happen. They feel that safety and security of a site must be directly proportionate to the importance of the data that it handles.

“Organisations in India are remarkably vulnerable to advanced cyber-attacks. They are significantly under-prepared in this area.

“We consistently encounter organisations here operating under the misguided assumption that antivirus and firewalls will keep you safe,” Vivek Chudgar, Senior Director (Asia-Pacific) of Mandiant, an arm of online security solutions firm Fire Eye, has said.

“They (firewalls and anti-virus solutions) are practically useless against advanced attacks,” he felt.

When an attack like this happens, organisations must do a proper forensic investigation with advanced tools to assess the extent of the overall damage done.

Tarun Kaura, (Director-Solution Product Management, Asia Pacific Japan) of global security solutions firm Symantec, said the attack indicates the growing trend of targeted attacks on organisations of all sizes.

He points out that websites are the gateways to a company’s network. “There were over one million web attacks globally against end-users each and every day in 2015. Websites are a critical element in major attacks. They are a way into a company’s network, they are a way into your data, and they are a way to reach their customers and partners,” he cautions.

Hacking of IRCTC site damaging

The inspector general (IG) of the Western Railway’s Railway Police Force (RPF), Uday Kumar, has said that the Indian Railway Catering Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) website for train booking, is not as well-equipped as it was thought to be.

The IRCTC has been refusing to accept that a number of software have cropped up in the market, which allow users to bypass the regular booking process by a few seconds and land themselves a confirmed berth.

Mr Kumar said that the financial damage caused by the hacking of the website via these software has been small but consistent. He also said they are yet to find a way to stop it.

“The point is that the IRCTC website probably doesn’t have strong enough firewalls or sophisticated enough tools to stop the use of these software on its website, but they are working on it,” said Mr Kumar.

The RPF has been tracking such cases since 2014, when the now infamous racket of virtual touting from out of Ahmedabad had allowed the perpetrator earn `2.5 crore.

Another illegal practice that has been going on involves some of the appointed agencies by the IRCTC using the access to the servers as way to book confirmed tickets for exorbitant prices from passengers.

“These agencies that are actually supposed to facilitate booking of tickets for those who don’t have access and are given a quota from the IRCTC for the same have been using this to earn money from commuters, to confirm the ticket,” further added Mr Kumar.

Even though these practices have been going on for over two years now, the IRCTC and the RPF are yet to draw out a plan to curb this menace.