Vijay Mallaya's site attacked by 'Pakistan Cyber Army'

16 Aug 2010 8ak: Vijay Mallaya, the liquor baron of India and member of parliament's website was hacked by a group that calls itself Pakistan Cyber Army (Facebook page link). The attackers promised to create havoc in Indian cyberspace. This follows from similar attacks from suspected Chinese sources as outlined by the Munk Group based in Canada in their document 'Shadows in the Clouds'. The latter attack was suspected to have even compromised India's Shakti ACCCS system developed for artillery systems. A ToI report quoted here, says that Pakistani and Chinese hackers steal more than 6 million files daily. Rediff reports on India's plan to attack hackers using its own non-military network of hackers.

Interesting article from Wired on the U.S.'s limited options in using cyber warfare to shut down wikileaks.org, the site that released 77,000 confidential documents exposing U.S. efforts and amongst other thing, civilian killings in Afghanistan. 

Many countries are at war and many more are involved in cyber warfare. Sensing that this is just an extension of warfare in to another domain, Boeing has recently acquired Narus in July. This is the latest in a series of acquisitions in this space and other global defence majors are doing the same. Indian private sector companies struggling with entry in to the Indian defence sector could find cyber warfare an alternative and lucrative route in to this space.

India and U.S. plan to counter cyber attacks

17 Apr 2010 8ak/PIB: Facing increasing cyber attacks, Indian Defence Minister, A.K. Antony, has asked the top brass of the Armed Forces to coordinate closely with various national cyber agencies and prepare crisis management action plan to counter cyber attacks and cyber terrorism. Addressing the Unified Commanders’ Conference, in New Delhi, Antony said cyber-space has emerged as an important medium for information sharing but at the same time the existing technology susceptible to misuse by anti-social and anti-national elements. 

Debating cyber security at such high profile conferences is a good sign of the governments willingness to tackle the growing threat, especially from China, which recently hacked into the Indian computers at various missions and important ministries, according to a report titled ‘Shadows in the Cloud’. 8ak had earlier reported that the Chinese cyber attack had resulted in the theft of sensitive information. Since hacked computers are used in these attacks, it is near impossible to prove the involvement of groups or countries but researchers have pointed fingers at China based not only on the origin of the attacks but also the nature of organisations that were targeted and the documents that were of interest to the hackers.

The two-day Conference was attended among others by Minister of State for Defence Shri MM Pallam Raju, the Chairman Chiefs of Staff Committee and the Chief of Air Staff Air Chief Marshal PV Naik, the Chief of Navy Staff Admiral Nirmal Verma, the Chief of Army Staff General VK Singh, Defence Secretary Shri Pradeep Kumar, Chief of Integrated Staff Committee Air Marshal SC Mukul, Commanders and Officers from the Service Headquarters and Ministry of Defence. 

Meanwhile the U.S. has appointed a 3 star general, Lt General Keith Alexander to head the Pentagon's new cyber command division. According to SMH report, he said the U.S. is already defending itself from these attacks and is of a strong view that the U.S. must launch counter-attacks themselves.

Antony expressed happiness over the progress made to improve jointness among Armed Forces in various spheres. He said increasing involvement of Integrated Defence Service Headquarters in Defence issues, the functioning of Andaman and Nicobar Command and progress of Strategic Force Command are a few examples that bear testimony to the same. He said the future of optimal military power lies in joint operations that needs to start from the planning stage, itself. Towards this end, the first ever Long Term Integrated Perspective Plan 2012 – 2027 is nearing completion under the aegis of HQ IDS. “Once finalised, it would be yet another milestone in our progress towards jointness”, he said. 

Deliberating on the issue of modernisation of the forces, Antony assured the Chiefs that there will never be a paucity of funds and all the financial assistance required, will be extended for the modernisation of the Armed Forces. However, he asked them to control the Revenue Expenditure* in the Armed Forces by adopting various mechanisms such as increased use of technology, integration of the three Services, adopting joint training procedures and uniform inventories.  Antony said there also exists considerable scope to improve the quality and efficacy of Defence Expenditure through increased Private Sector engagement, import substitution and indigenisation, improvement in procedures & practices and better project management within the parameters of the government’s policies.

(* Expenditure on equipment to add new capabilities, types of equipment is classified as capital expenditure, whereas expenditure aimed at replacing older equipment or maintaining existing capabilities is classified as Revenue expenditure.)

US offers latest airborne radar to India

31 Mar 2010 8ak: In yet another move to enhance defence cooperation with India, the United States has offered the latest to sell the latest Airborne Stand-off Radar (ASTOR) system. The sophisticated system is being operated by British forces in Afghanistan with five ASTOR aircraft and eight ground stations. 

ASTOR uses the Bombardier Global Express business jet, known in service as the Sentinel R Mk 1, and an Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar. The system provides a highly effective 24-hour surveillance and target acquisition capability. It delivers wide area, all weather surveillance and reconnaissance imagery in near real time for peacekeeping, warfighting and homeland security needs. 

The system has a dual mode Synthetic Aperture Radar/Moving Target Indicator (SAR/MTI) sensor. The SAR provides high-resolution images for decision makers and the MTI monitors the quantity, direction and speed of moving targets for unparalleled situational awareness. The company has also built an AESA radar for F 16s, should a country buying it make the choice in its favour.

Speaking to India Strategic magazine, Admiral Walter F Doran, president Asia for Raytheon said that ASTOR flies high enough - 40,000 to 45,000 feet - to cover a large ground area, and to be beyond the range of most surface-to-air missiles (SAMs). It is also equipped with a self protection suite to put out flares and chaff to confuse and deflect any threatening missiles.

Apart from ASTOR, Raytheon’s David Hartman revealed to 8ak in an exclusive interview, that they had also offered India the Hawk-2 missile systems to India in response to a Request for Proposal (RFP) around 19 months ago.

In another important development pertaining to missile systems, English People’s daily quotes DRDO Director General V.K. Saraswat saying that India will start to deploy its anti-missile interception system in 2012 to neutralise incoming ballistic missiles.  

Thales launches maritime radar ESM for small vessels

17 Feb 2010 8ak: European arms major Thales announced the launch of Vigile LW, a lightweight, naval Radar Electronic Support Measure (RESM) on Tuesday during the ongoing DefExpo in Delhi. Thales PR said that the new system will redefine situational awareness for small vessels. The company hopes that the Vigile LW will interest the Indian government, which is spending billions on modernising its armed forces after the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, wherein the terrorists are suspected to have used water as a means to enter India’s financial capital. A costal command has also been exclusively set-up under the naval command to step up maritime surveillance. 

“Vigile LW detects, identifies and displays air and surface threats in real time, providing tactical situational awareness wherever needed for small vessels,” said Jean-Marc Goujon, Thales’ head of marketing for military products, at its unveiling. 

“It is primarily designed for naval applications but can play a major role in coastal security. This is because it can be mounted on vessels, on land or can even be transported on land,” Goujon added further.

Signalling the emergence of India as a prospective hub for defence production, Goujon said that there was a possibility that a new joint venture company may be floated by Thales in India if the response of the government towards its products was encouraging.

The statement also said that Vigile LW is the core element of a Self Protection Suite and can be operated as a standalone RESM or as a central Electronic Warfare controller. It can control the communication and Radar ESM, Laser Warning, Missile warning and programmable decoying functions. Installed across several vessels, Vigile LW can provide a network-centric compatible solution for increased protection. 

“This new member to the Vigile family meets a true requirement in the market and aims to fill a very real capacity gap – at a lower acquisition and possession cost.,” commented Pierre-Eric Pommellet, Thales Senior Vice President, in charge of defence mission systems.

The Vigile LW is the fifth product in the Vigile family of advanced naval electronic support measures/electronic intelligence systems. The system operates automatically and therefore is autonomous and easy to support. Tracks can optionally be overlayed onto the radar picture, removing the need for a dedicated Electronic Warfare operator and thereby keeping through-life costs low and easing crew workloads. 

Steganography: Illegal information being hidden in voice, music and similar data files

11 Feb 2010 8ak: Fascinating spy stuff from IEEE Spectrum on how people are bypassing restrictions by hiding commercially or otherwise sensitive data within digital photos, voice messages, music files that can be transported over normal, innocent channels like Skype and Facebook. Indian security agencies should take note (check: the solution should not be to ban digital photos!). 

Lockheed's order for sniper advanced targeting pods (explained!)

08 Feb 2010 8ak/LM PR: Lockheed Martin has received a US$59 million US air force order for supplying additional sniper advanced targeting pods (ATPs). The order is over and above the original ATP order for air force’s Sniper ATP Lot 9 contract, originally awarded in September 2009, bringing the total value of the Lot 9 buy to $95 million.

Delivering the highest resolution imagery for precision targeting and non-traditional intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, the Sniper ATP plays a major role in Air Force operations in theater, providing top cover for ground forces, as well as increasing the safety of civilian populations.

Lot 9 pods will be used to support additional U.S. Air Force deployments and allow the Air Force to allocate pod resources to home-station training, enabling aircrews to train with the equipment they will use in deployed operations. Deployed in theater on U.S. Air Force and coalition partner F-15, F-16, A-10 and B-1 aircraft, the Sniper ATP is the most widely used targeting pod in combat operations.

Lot 9 Sniper pod technology will include a new data link capability, enhanced multiple moving target tracker, the capability to deliver legacy weapons and new weapon variants on moving targets, and weapon damage estimation radius displays to reduce the potential for collateral damage.

Since its first deployment in 2005, the Sniper ATP has enabled aircrews to operate well outside jet noise ranges, permitting forces to identify, track and defeat targets without detection. Its common software and hardware interface provide interoperability across aircraft fleets. 

More on the Sniper ATP is on Lockheed's website here. The Sniper ATP is operational on U.S. Air Force, Air National Guard and multinational F-16, F-15, B-1, F-18, Harrier and A-10 aircraft. Platform expansion continues with the B-52, Tornado, Typhoon, unmanned aerial vehicles and additional aircraft.

The Sniper ATP’s modular design facilitates easy field upgrade to pods already in service and enables rapid flight line repair to maintain a 98 percent fully mission capable rate. The combat-proven Sniper Pod is the U.S. Air Force's advanced targeting pod (ATP). The Sniper ATP provides critical long- range, positive identification of targets and possesses a video down link (VDL) equipped with the widely used Rover ground receiver to relay high resolution streaming video to forward-deployed forces for NT-ISR and rapid target coordination. It's advanced target identification capabilities enhance the Warfighter’s ability to detect and analyse ground targets while dramatically decreasing the risks posed by enemy air defences.

The Sniper ATP also provides essential non-traditional intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance using high-resolution, mid-wave FLIR and TV sensors, which operate in conjunction with a dual-mode laser, permitting eye-safe operation and precise geo-location in urban environments. 

For target coordination, the Sniper pod possesses a laser spot tracker to acquire other laser spots from air and ground assets, an infrared marker visible to night vision goggles and a VDL to ground forces. Sniper ATP provides real-time targeting for J-series weapons and its state-of-the-art tracker enables employment of advanced laser-guided weapons against moving targets. The Sniper ATP is the only targeting pod fielded that incorporates meta-data in every frame of video. The date/time stamp and coordinate information further ensure accuracy throughout intelligence and command and control functions.