The Indian cyberspace is under attack and is being increasingly targeted by hackers and cyber criminals from neighbouring countries.

ICERT (Indian Computer Emergency Response Team) statistics show a rise in defacement cases. In January, 466 cases were reported whereas in January 2008 the number was 81.

Defacement of a website means changing the original content on the website by editing or adding fake information about people, organisation, or issues.

"Defacement can lead to serious problems for an organisation or a government body owning a website," Vijay Mukhi of the Foundation for Information Security and Technology (FIST) said.

"If some fake information is added on a website, it can lead to huge monetary as well as other losses for the owner. Defacement can be done by hacking into a website or by using some flaws in the software."

The ICERT report has divided the cases of defacement into two sections -- defacement cases in TLD (Top Level Domain) websites and CCTLD (Country Code Top Level Domain). Websites that fall in the TLD category have extension codes such as com, org, net, and edu whereas CCTLD websites have extension codes such as in, ac.in, gov.in, or edu.in.

"Cases reported to ICERT deal with mostly government websites that have been defaced," a cyber crime expert said. "On most occasions, the person defacing the website is traced to foreign countries. This makes it difficult to take any action against them."

Mukhi said several cases of defacement were not reported to ICERT. "This is another reason why no action can be taken against culprits," he said. "People should register complaints. One should keep upgrading the operating and other softwares to prevent websites being defaced."

Shannon Rossmiller, a Montana mom who befriends and betrays online jihadists -- while she gets her kids ready for school. Her social networking has helped bust a half-dozen terror rings, authorities say.

Rossmiller succeeds by exploiting a fundamental flaw in al Qaeda's famously decentralized organization. The absence of a strict hierarchy makes it pretty easy for a cunning person to mix among the terrorists. So she poses as a potential al Qaeda soldier looking for like-minded comers. She creates multiple characters and uses her older and more respected personae to invite the new ones into private forums. There are other self-taught counterterrorists like her, but they tend to translate and discuss, lurk and report. Rossmiller works the terrorism boards as if she were playing a complex videogame. Her characters come complete with distinct personalities and detailed biographies that are as richly conceived as any protagonist on an HBO series. She keeps copies of everything, time-stamps files, and takes screenshots. She has an Excel spreadsheet that details the 640 people with whom she has had contact on these boards since 2002...

In May 2002, [for instance,] Rossmiller saw a post from a man in Pakistan who said he had access to Stinger missiles he wanted to sell. She wrote back to the person she now identifies in her files as Rocket Man, posing as someone interested in purchasing his wares. After a few exchanges, she abruptly threatened to cut off contact unless he provided proof he was who he said he was. "And I'll be gol-danged if a few days later, a nice little zip file appears with pictures of him sitting on some crates." The inventory numbers of the Stingers were clearly visible. Rossmiller then realized that her hobby had turned into something that needed attention from the FBI.

Rossmiller's not the only private citizen that's tangling with Islamic extremists online, of course. Earlier this month, terror-hunted Rita Katz made headlines when she accused the Bush Administration of blowing her surveillance of Al-Qaeda's "intranet."

Then there's Joseph G. Shahda, a Boston engineer who's "happily claiming credit" for knocking offline "40 militant Islamist Web sites," including "some of the world’s most active jihadi sites, with forums full of extremist chatter."

“These sites are very, very dangerous,” Shahda tells the New York Times. “And I think we should keep going after them. They are used as recruiting tools for terrorists, arousing emotions, teaching how to hate.”

Al Qaeda may have been a pioneer in exploiting new media to spread propaganda and recruit members. But now, many experts feel the terror group is falling behind. Despite all the hand-wringing in U.S. intelligence circles, Osama & Co. don't seem to be comfortable with Web 2.0-style applications. Marc Lynch explains why, in a must-read post. Here's a snip:

Social networking: one of the biggest problems for a virtual network like AQ today is that it needs to build connections between its members while protecting itself from its enemies. That's a filtering problem: how do you get your people in, and keep intelligence agents out? An AQMonster.com database would be easy pickings - an online list of all the 'explosives experts' would be a gift to intelligence, no? An AQFacebook or AQSpace might create an identifiable universe of jihadist sympathizers, but again would probably help intelligence agencies as much as AQ. Perhaps an AQLinkedIn model, where members need to be recommended by a current member would reproduce the low-tech approach of allowing in trusted members and keeping out unknown quantities. This could potentially strengthen the 'organization' part... but at the expense of a greater distance from the pool of potential recruits who would not be sufficiently trusted to join. Overall it's hard to see how AQ could adapt social networking without creating such vulnerabilities. Its rivals, on the other hand, have no such problems - Muslim Brotherhood youth are all over Facebook.

Could Twitter become terrorists' newest killer app? A draft Army intelligence report, making its way through spy circles, thinks the miniature messaging software could be used as an effective tool for coordinating militant attacks.

For years, American analysts have been concerned that militants would take advantage of commercial hardware and software to help plan and carry out their strikes. Everything from online games to remote-controlled toys to social network sites to garage door openers has been fingered as possible tools for mayhem.

This recent presentation -- put together on the Army's 304th Military Intelligence Battalion and found on the Federation of the American Scientists website -- focuses on some of the newer applications for mobile phones: digital maps, GPS locators, photo swappers, and Twitter mash-ups of it all.

The report is roughly divided into two halves. The first is based mostly on chatter from Al-Qaeda-affiliated online forums. One Islamic extremist site discusses, for example, the benefits of "using a mobile phone camera to monitor the enemy and its mechanisms." Another focuses on the benefits of the Nokia 6210 Navigator, and how its GPS utilities could be used for "marksmanship, border crossings, and in concealment of supplies." Such software could allow jihadists to pick their way across multiple routes, identifying terrain features as they go. A third extremist forum recommends the installation of voice-modification software to conceal one's identity when making calls. Excerpts from a fourth site show cell phone wallpapers that wannabe jihadists can use to express their affinity for radicalism:

Then the presentation launches into an even-more theoretical discussion of how militants might pair some of these mobile applications with Twitter, to magnify their impact. After all, "Twitter was recently used as a countersurveillance, command and control, and movement tool by activists at the Republican National Convention," the report notes."The activists would Tweet each other and their Twitter pages to add information on what was happening with Law Enforcement near real time."

Terrorists haven't done anything similar, the Army report concedes - although it does note that there are "multiple pro and anti Hezbollah Tweets." Instead, the presentation lays out three possible scenarios in which Twitter could become a militant's friend:

Scenario 1: Terrorist operative “A” uses Twitter with… a cell phone camera/video function to send back messages, and to receive messages, from the rest of his [group]... Other members of his [group] receive near real time updates (similar to the movement updates that were sent by activists at the RNC) on how, where, and the number of troops that are moving in order to conduct an ambush.

Scenario 2: Terrorist operative “A” has a mobile phone for Tweet messaging and for taking images. Operative “A” also has a separate mobile phone that is actually an explosive device and/or a suicide vest for remote detonation. Terrorist operative “B” has the detonator and a mobile to view “A’s” Tweets and images. This may allow ”B” to select the precise moment of remote detonation based on near real time movement and imagery that is being sent by “A.”

Scenario 3: Cyber Terrorist operative “A” finds U.S. [soldier] Smith’s Twitter account. Operative “A” joins Smith’s Tweets and begins to elicit information from Smith. This information is then used for… identity theft, hacking, and/or physical [attacks]. This scenario… has already been discussed for other social networking sites, such as My Space and/or Face Book.

Steven Aftergood, a veteran intelligence analyst at the Federation of the American Scientists, doesn't dismiss the Army presentation out of hand. But nor does he think it's tackling a terribly seriously threat. "Red-teaming exercises to anticipate adversary operations are fundamental. But they need to be informed by a sense of what's realistic and important and what's not," he tells Danger Room. "If we have time to worry about 'Twitter threats' then we're in good shape. I mean, it's important to keep some sense of proportion."

Al-Qaida's once-robust online propaganda network has taken a hit. The release of a 9/11 anniversary video was delayed by nearly a week. And one of the most popular video-distribution sites is offline.

For years, the al-Ekhlaas network of sites has been a primary distributor of videos from al-Sahab, Qaida's propaganda arm. Then, on September 11, al-Ekhlaas.net was suddenly re-registered. Its domain name now belongs to the joker.com hosting service. All of its content vanished. Related and mirrored pages also went down. Even al-Ekhlaas' YouTube account was suspended.

It's not the first time this has happened; hosting companies have dumped al-Ekhlaas sites before, in response to Western pressures. But the breadth of this effort points to a coordinated attack on a major nerve center of al-Qaida's information warfare effort. "Al Ekhlaas fans are beginning to lose hope of being able to log onto what was once the number one militant Islamist forum on the web," reports CBS' online Internet Terror Monitor.

The strikes against the propaganda network appear to be ongoing. A much-hyped al-Sahab video, commemorating the 9/11 attacks, was only released today -- six days late. And some online al-Qaida sympathizers are complaining that they've been unable to use their normal passwords, to download the video.

The Hindustani Times credits two bloggers with the disruption: Aaron Weisburd from Internet Haganah and "Rusty Shackleford" from The Jawa Report. Shackleford was quick to laugh off the accusation. "News of my ability to thwart al Qaida's online activities have been greatly exaggerated," he writes. Internet jihadists, on the other hand, are blaming American intelligence agencies for the takedown.

Online jihadists have already used YouTube, blogs and other social media to spread their propaganda. Now, a group of internet Islamic extremists is putting together a plan for "invading Facebook."

"We can use Facebook to fight the media," notes a recent posting on the extremist al-Faloja forum, translated by Jihadica.com. "We can post media on Facebook that shows the Crusader losses."

"We have already had great success in raiding YouTube," the poster adds. "American politicians have used Facebook to get votes, like the house slave Obama."

Groups like al-Qaida were pioneering users of the internet — to train, share ideas and organize. But some observers, like George Washington University professor Marc Lynch, see a reluctance to embrace Web 2.0 tools like Facebook. "One of the biggest problems for a virtual network like AQ today is that it needs to build connections between its members while protecting itself from its enemies. That's a filtering problem: How do you get your people in, and keep intelligence agents out?" he asks.

But as Jihadica.com author and West Point Combating Terrorism Center fellow William McCants notes, the proposed Facebook invasion "is not an attempt to replicate [existing] social networks." Instead, "the members of the campaign want to exploit existing networks of people who are hostile to them and presumably they will adopt new identities once they have posted their material."

The al-Faloja poster suggests seven "brigades" work together within Facebook. One will distribute videos and writing of so-called "martyrs." Another will spread military training material. Most of them will work in Arabic, presumably. But one of the units will focus just on spread English-language propaganda through Facebook.