Despair in Andhra Pradesh

Wednesday October 10 2007 01:10 IST

V L Srinivasan

HYDERABAD: Exporters from Andhra Pradesh are in despair following the appreciation of the rupee against the US dollar.

The value of the dollar had its impact on the merchandise exports, largely in tobacco and software sectors and engineering products, in the State.

The engineering exports from Andhra Pradesh touched Rs 3,256 crore during 2006- 07 but they are expected to come down by 25 per cent by March 2008. China, which is the main competitor to India in engineering exports, will benefit due to the development.

‘‘Chinese exporters are insulated from foreign exchange fluctuations and get the fixed local currency from their government whereas there is no such provision for the Indian exporters,’’ Engineering Export Promotion Council national vice-chairman Mahesh Desai told this website's newspaper.

Under the given circumstances, the Centre’s target of earning $165 billion through exports during the current financial year may not be possible.

The two dozen tobacco exporters from Andhra Pradesh are worried that the fall in dollar value would hit their exports considerably. As against exports valued at Rs 1,500 crore during 2006-07, it is expected to be around Rs 1,300 crore. Tobacco is cultivated in Khammam, Guntur, Prakasam and West Godavari districts and the target fixed is 150 million kg for this year.

‘‘We have entered into agreements with buyers in Brazil and some European countries in terms of the US dollar and it will have its impact on our business this year,’’ M Uma Maheswara Rao, one of the leading tobacco exporters in Guntur district, told this website's newspaper.

The exporters, who purchased tobacco at the rate of Rs 50-52 per kg in Andhra Pradesh and Rs 65 per kg in Karnataka, are keeping their fingers crossed as reports of the rupee appreciating further, up to Rs 37 in the next few weeks, has been doing rounds in the global markets.

Hackers phish Americans through Police Academy website

Saturday October 13 2007 10:02 IST

V L Srinivasan

HYDERABAD: Belying claims that computer systems in government offices are secure, unidentified hackers have managed to host a phishing site of an American bank through the official website of the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel National Police Academy (SVPNPA) a couple of days ago.

The US-based F-secure has alerted SVPNPA officials and India’s Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-IN) that the Academy was hosting a phishing site posing as the Bank of America. Subsequently, the site was removed.

This is the second major Indian website to experience trouble of late, with the Bank of India online being compromised by several Trojan attacks in August this year. In a statement posted on their website, F-Secure senior security specialist Patrik Runald, who alerted the NPA about the problem, said:

“All we know at this stage is that somehow SVPNPA’s server has been compromised and a phishing site has been uploaded through the same.” A clear sign that the Bank of America’s phishing site was fraudulent was that it carried a logo of the US Olympic sponsorship for the US sports team during 2000- 2004.

According to official sources, the number of phishing sites hosted on government domains around the world has been on rise in recent months. These fraudulent sites look like the legitimate websites and are designed to trick users into divulging personal information such as government issued identity numbers, bank password or credit card numbers.

Most phishing sites are placed on government web servers by hackers who gain access to the server through backdoors, a vulnerable web interface or some other means.

The sources said hosting a phishing web page on a government site has a number of advantages for a phisher. Government websites often receive a high volume of traffic, so their servers can handle the extra traffic generated by a phishing site.

While confirming the raid on their website, a senior official of the SVPNPA told this website's newspaper that the matter was reported to CERT and further investigations were on.

Spam turns truly sinister

Saturday October 20 2007 02:49 IST

V L Srinivasan

HYDERABAD: Netizens, beware! "Cybersquatters" are on the prowl. If you get any unsolicited spam e-mails offering banking transactions, never reply to them, much less divulge details of your financial dealings, including credit card or bank account numbers.

This caution is not only being given to individuals but even to companies selling branded products as the threat looms large over these firms in India.

The problem has already engulfed several companies in the US and Europe where hundreds of firms engaged in financial services, along with their customers, have become bankrupt after the latter unwittingly provided details of financial dealings online to the Cybersquatters.

Cybersquatting is used by phishers to convince the recipients of their emails to respond to cleverly misspelt brand names of major banks, commercial products, e-retailers and credit card companies.

The modus operandi of the phishers is simple. They send e-mails to Internet addicts, gain their confidence and lead them to counterfeit websites that are a one-letter misspell of their bank’s domain name.

Because these typo domain names are very similar to the real ones, consumers are often tricked into divulging financial data such as credit card numbers, account usernames, passwords and other details to the scammers.

For instance, Colgate, which is a brand name for half a dozen products, is bedevilled by 100 registered domains which are confusingly similar to the original brand name. Some variants include Ccolgate, Calgate and Cilgate.

Dogging Microsoft, the global giant in software industry, are 581 misspelt domains, and Compaq computers and Palmolive are harried by 163 and 36 respectively.

Even personalities like Chief Minister YS Rajasekhara Reddy, Telugu Desam supremo N Chandrababu Naidu and late chief minister NT Rama Rao have three domains each registered by the Cybersquatters.

The record number of such misspelt domains are in the name of US celebrity Paris Hilton, who has as many as 1,974 domains, followed by pop singer Britney Spears (1,341). Hollywood’s famous couple Angelina Jolie and her husband Brad Pitt have 371 and 279 domains respectively. One of the main reasons for the increase in the Cybersquatter menace is attributed to the low prices of Internet domain names.

"Anyone can pay US $ 30-40 per year and register a domain in the United States," Infotech’s Deputy General Manager (IT Infrastructure) Shiv Prasad told this website's newspaper.

According to him, there were no provisions in the existing cyber laws to curb the menace and the Central Government, which is reworking the IT Act, should keep this in view before finalising the new IT legislation. The Central Government has capped the problem to some extent by asking the business entities to register their companies’ domain with ‘.in’ at the end.

"But we cannot do anything in respect of individuals (read unscrupulous elements) registering the domains in the names of their choice," a senior official in the Information Technology department said.