Jayadevan P K/ENS
 
Bangalore, May 16: According to a recent threat report published by Symantec, the Indian Syndicate Bank website was compromised by attackers and used to serve browser plugin exploits.

When a trusted website is compromised, Internet users become an easy prey to fraud and other identity theft related crimes. Nearly 50-60 lakh Indians are actively involved in social networking and spend approximately 25-75 per cent of their time online in social networking activities.

Interestingly, the threat report says that the majority of phished websites are spoofed social networking sites. Superintendent of Police and cyber law expert B A Mahesh, who handles the city’s cyber crime police station, told this website's newspaper that the number of incidents reported is low due to various factors.

There are many Acts under the IPC which can address frauds and thefts, however the jurisdiction plays an important role since most Internet offenders are based overseas.

On the other hand, he questioned the extent of policing needed in the cyber world and quoted John Perry Barlow’s document ‘A Declaration of Independence in Cyberspace.’

A senior operations manager at a leading BPO said: “Data security is the biggest concern among BPOs since we deal with sensitive information that clients want protected. We have had such incidents in the past. But corporates tend to hush them up since we would end up losing clients, and therefore most cases go unreported.”

While the complications of the cyberspace threat may be hard to comprehend, it is evident that more cases need to be reported. Further, better techniques need to be developed to identify and prosecute those involved in cyber crimes.