Taking the Internet for granted

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: Ask Internet users what they want from their service and 99 times out of 100, the answer will be the same: ‘more’—more speed, more bandwidth and more flexibility of use. Nobody knows this better than Internet infrastructure providers, who for years have devoted the vast majority of their development budgets to meet consumer demands for faster, more flexible networks. Security has often been an afterthought.

For the most part, this market-driven approach has been a boon to the Internet and its users, but recent events have begun to illustrate the dangers of this single-minded focus.

In the recent past, there have been a few incidents that have sent ripples throughout the global Internet, causing real damage and painting a troubling picture of vulnerabilities that could someday bring this vital engine of commerce and communication to a grinding halt.

The simple truth is that our global investment in the security and stability of the Internet has not been in accordance with our relentless pursuit of greater speed and flexibility. Ignoring this imbalance for long would result in a global online incident, the impact of which could be felt for years to come.

In November 2008, a gang of five phishers in India robbed nearly Rs 5.5 crore from several customers and private banks through an Internet banking system.The phishers sent emails to the bank’s customer base requesting for details of their credit/debit cards and passwords, citing a systems upgrade process as reason for the same. In reality, the motive of sending fake emails was to acquire personal information such as customer ID and net banking passwords to hack into accounts.

Another incident was reported in the same month, wherein the Web site of a state crime investigation department was hacked. Using the proxy chain technique, the hackers deleted critical information involving hundreds of servers across the globe. The attack, launched from randomly selected servers made it difficult to track down the hackers. The details of the incident are less important than the fact that the circumstances that allowed it to occur remain unchanged, as do scores of similar vulnerabilities endemic to the Internet’s open architecture.