Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Cyber Secure Pakistan 2013: Dealing with Hackers and Threats

clip image0022 Cyber Secure Pakistan 2013: Dealing with Hackers and ThreatsSince last few years we do get regular news about hacking attempts and defacements. Here are few example stories ProPakistani covered lately:
  • Google’s Pakistan site, 284 others hacked by Turkish hacker group Eboz
  • 2000 Pakistani websites Hacked By Indian United Hackers
  • 20 Pakistan websites Hacked and defaced by jaguar for 26/1
  • Top Pakistani Government & other 250 Websites Hacked by Indishell
  • Pakistan’s Punjab Assembly Website Hacked
  • Bangladeshi hackers defaced top Pakistani websites
  • Pakistani websites are experiencing massive hacking attempts by Israeli hackers
And the list goes on and on.
Is seems like a cyber-war is going on and there is an immense need of creating awareness about data and information security at all levels i.e. from government to an individual level to secure our cyber fronts.
It was last year in May that Pakistan Information Security Association (PISA) took an initiative to pull up a Flagship Conference on Cyber Security to spread awareness at all levels involving relevant stakeholders of the industry. You can recap the archives of the conference here.
After an year, when the threats have only increased, there is another conference planned on April 20th, 2013 with a focus on to creating awareness about cyber security amongst the general public and corporate sector about Information Security issues.
CSP 2013 will continue to evolve the tradition of securing industrial and organizational data transactions.
At Cyber Secure Pakistan 2013, additional director general FIA, project director NR3C, Minister of IT and Telecom along with Secretory IT will grace the conference with their presence. Dignitaries from Google, Microsoft, Interpol, Cyber Secure Malaysia, EC-Council USA, Oman CERT and Australian Federal Police along with other organizations will be there to discuss their point of views and experiences.
Besides discussions by experts, the conference incorporates different sessions like training and competition in order to pull out the right talent from industry. For that reason NTFS Forensic Analysis training will be given by the CERT team from Malaysia in collaboration with NIMIS. ‘Capture the Flag’ hacking competition with exciting giveaways for the winners is also set in place in collaboration with Tranchulas.
The conference is pertinent for all professionals working in the field of Information or Data Security.
Cyber Secure Pakistan 2013 is carrying the following objectives:
  • Bridging the gap between local and global Information Security practices;
  • Educating about adapting new streams (tracks) of Information Security for bringing positive change in the IT industry;
  • Improving our infrastructure according to the current immediacy of global threat;
  • Highlight the hidden talent of professionals working in the back end to bring Pakistan back on the global talent map;
  • Bring academia and industry closer to each other for bringing change and solving our collective problems.
You can get yourself registered at:http://www.cybersecurepakistan.com/registration.php
Just to mention, ProPakistani is the official Blog Partner for the conference and we will be brining you all the updates from the conference.

Internet Speeds Get Back to Normal as Repair of Undersea Cable Gets Completed

IMEWI Internet Speeds Get Back to Normal as Repair of Undersea Cable Gets CompletedIMEWE  Segment 1  repair  has  been  completed after almost one month and cable has been powered  up  for  the  traffic,  said a statement issued today.
Statement said that post repair system performance has been verified and undersea cable is now functioning in full throttle. Repeaters performance and splice loss all are as per the acceptable values.
Reportedly, the shunt fault was located at  116.7 KM from Mumbai link where the cable was observed to be dragged on sea bed by fishing liners.
It maybe recalled that IMEWE got damaged on March 10th, after which PTCL and other Pakistani ISPs had to route traffic to other under-sea cables connected to the country.
During  the  cable  fault  Pakistani Internet Service Providers took  necessary actions to minimize the impact  on  the  services  to  customers in Pakistan, by making alternate arrangement for internet capacity.
This has been made possible because of multiple submarines cable systems facility in Pakistan.
It merits mentioning here that SMW4 – another undersea cable connected to Pakistan – was also damaged during last month, but was soon repaired.
Currently the internet speeds in Pakistan are fully up and powered in full throttle.