A fairly active cyber militia within Israel wants you! These cyber activists (Help Israel Win) are actively recruiting pro-Israeli computer users to aide in their cyber attacks against Hamas websites. These efforts appear to date back to the very early days of the latest conflict in Gaza. The militia developed and is distributing a cyber weapon called "Patriot" that once installed turns the volunteer computer to be remotely controlled and used in a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack against targeted Hamas websites.

As of late last week, the cyber militia said there were about 8,000 downloads of the cyber weapon. This is not just a hack package. The software includes the ability to remotely update the cyber weapon as well as an uninstaller that will remove the program once the conflict has ended.

This is just one aspect of the growing cyber war. The DDoS coupled with a significant propaganda (PSYOPS) offensive has continued to intensify in the Israel/Gaza conflict. PSYOPS is commonly used to induce and/or reinforce attitudes and behaviors favorable to the desired objectives of those launching the psychological operations. There have been reports that the Israeli military is also using the good old phone system in their PSYOPS initiatives. There have been multiple reports that Palestinians have been receiving phone calls from the Israeli army warning them against dealing with or assisting Hamas. Numerous reports of web site defacement have echoed throughout the online world for weeks now. In fact, the Israeli military launched its own PSYOPS and became the first national army to set up an official YouTube channel featuring its own military videos.

This is just the latest indicator of the new hybrid conflict engagement that combines bombs and bullets with bits and bytes. One thing is sure; the cyber war is heating up with multiple other countries getting involved.

A cautionary note: Can someone else use the installed Patriot program? Yes - potentially. That being said, millions of computers have the same issue that are part of BotNets and the owners are totally unaware of that fact. Anyone who grants any type of remote access for maintenance, this type of activism or who knows what are placing themselves at risk.

Some Pakistani individuals, who are on the prowl to hack important websites and misuse them by giving it Islamic or Pakistani colour, have targeted Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam's famous community group on Orkut, the social networking site.

The community group holds significance for the orkut members, as it is probably the biggest platform for the young fans of former President A.P.J Abdul Kalam. And, the most of the members of this community write in it with deep affection and respect for their ideal in life. There are 207,249 members in this group.

The hackers have renamed the community originally named "Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam" as "Indian" and now using it as a platform for malicious and objectionable content.

The main profile page now reads: "We, the people of India, apologizes to our Pakistani brothers and ISI for barbaric acts of terrorism like Mumbi and Gujrat and many more which were originated and carried out by few citizens of India and supported by government of India. We condemn such acts to fullest."

The new moderators' names are very much visible on the site and show registration from Pakistan.

The incident has outraged fans of former President APJ Abdul Kalam in orkut world. They want the authorities to take all measures to prevent such incidents.

"As a regular member of many communities and the owner of "India" communityn orkut (which is Pakistani hacker's biggest target since its existence and has nearly 8 lakh members), I have faced this menace not for the first time. The unethical hackers groups usually are a bunch of intelligent guys. But they need
to spend their time and energy on some constructive work like helping secure our networks rather than involving in hacking online communities," said Vishal Trivedi, owner of the "India" community (796,517 members)

"The hacking of Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam community is not only unfortunate but disgusting too, as the hackers group of Pakistan, in reality, have started the whole unethical practice by hacking and defacing many Indian communities like Hinduism, Durga Puja and non-stop abusing in them. This vicious circle has no beginning or end. In order to counter such unethical activity, there is a need to spread awareness among members on social networking communities about security measures to secure their profiles," Vishal added.

"Pakistani hackers have increased their activities just after Mumbai attacks. We noticed the attacks when one of the moderators on VHP community was hacked and 3,000 members were banned. We also saw hacking of APJ Abdul Kalam community. Now they are using that community to further their anti-India propaganda. They want to spread panic. They do not have to worry about anything, as Pakistani government seems to indirectly support them," said Vikas Sankrityayan, owner of "RSS Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh community" (42,011 members).

Recent media reports stated intelligence agencies have warned about anti-India elements in Pakistan planning to attack Indian computer networks. It had warned that Pakistani hackers were trying out a dry run by hacking popular websites.

After the Mumbai terror strikes, anti-India elements in Pakistan are now planning an attack on Indian computer networks, intelligence agencies have warned.

Already Pakistani hackers are trying out a dry run against Indian networks through popular websites registered
there after the Mumbai terror strikes, Home Ministry sources told PTI on Tuesday.

"Every time the relations between the two countries dampen, Pakistanis start attacking Indian computer networks
and this has increased after the Mumbai terror attacks," a Home Ministry source said.

Pakistani hackers have created websites such as the www.songs.pk, which are infested with software to hack data
from the targeted computers, it said.

"The website www.songs.pk has over 12 lakh Indian users who are downloading stuff from these websites daily," said a cyber expert in the Ministry.

With these websites being highly popular, it will take only a few minutes for the hackers to take command of over 12 lakh computers in few minutes and the number of such computers can multiply in every minute, sources said.

"Instead of the existing less harmful virus, new ones such as Botnet and Zoombie can be easily released into the Indian computers, which later on replicate and make the entire server vulnerable," the expert said.

"Now a days new virus and worms are detected while downloading songs from these websites, which could be just a
dry run to manage a bigger attack," he said.

Government websites have been highly vulnerable to hacking and they have been intruded many times by the Pakistani hackers.

"Most of the time, these cases are not reported as the server is based in Pakistan and we cannot do anything in this regard," the expert said.

The anti-virus software, too, cannot work in such situation as the virus used in such cyber wars are usually new and the anti-virus software cannot identity and detect it, he said.

"If anti-virus software cannot identify the signature of the virus coming through Internet, it will not detect it and as a result the virus will be downloaded in the computer in spite of such software available in the network," the expert added. ( Source : Hindustan Times )