India Further Developing its Cybersecurity Network in NSA Direction

This reflects how the US Cyber security (and intelligence) network may be organised - consisting of "backdoors" in major phone exchanges/internet servers that the NSA/FBI can access. It is likely India is developing a similar network. Click image to enlarge. Diagram coutesy of US History Commons.

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On May 10, 2010 this blog referred to national governmental monitoring of social media including Facebook and Twitter.

The following article from the UK Register is a useful description of legal domestic communications monitoring that potentially covers all phone and internet users in India. This in the context of the new "shopfront" body the Indian National Cyber Co-ordination Centre. Monitoring may depend on location(s) overseas that phone/internet messages originate or terminate (particularly if Pakistan is involved). Additional criteria of interest might include users past/present activities, any hacking history, social/political/religious/terrorist/criminal connections, nationality and specific words and languages they use in their calls/messages.

The US has a similar Centre . There is a high degree international alliance making, equipment and network standardisation and legislative conformity in the broad area of cyber security - all lead by the US. While the inner circle of the cyber-security (aka information security (infosec)) and code breaking sigint allies is the Anglo/UKUSA (US, UK, NZ, Australia and Canada) Alliance there is a circle of associate allies, which now includes India and probably Singapore, Germany, France and Japan.

Several Indian agencies would provide input into running the National Cyber Co-ordination Centre including the Indian security service the Intelligence Bureau (IB) and main sigint backbone the National Technical Research Organization (NTRO). Military, police and civilian intelligence organisations (perhaps including RAW) might be involved in additional targeting/tasking of the National Cyber Co-ordination Centre. This is assuming Centre is not only involved in defensive/security functions but also proactive information gathering.

The article http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/02/29/india_censorship_web/ of February 29, 2012 reads:

"India splurges £10m on new mega internet snooping HQ"

By Phil Muncaster Posted in Government, 29th February 2012 18:29 GMT

India’s clampdown on its netizens is set to continue after its government revealed it is setting up a National Cyber Co-ordination Centre to monitor all web traffic flowing through the country - in the name of national security.

The Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/news/internet/Govt-to-set-up-a-national-internet-scanning-agency/articleshow/12066010.cms had access to the minutes of a National Security Council Secretariat meeting held earlier this month, which claimed the new £10m centre [this startup money vastly understates the cost of a complete monitoring network's hardware, software and staffing] would monitor all tweets, emails, email drafts, status updates and other messages.

The agency will be tasked with scanning “cyber traffic flowing at the point of entry and exit at India's international internet gateways” in order to provide “actionable alerts” to relevant government departments in the event of a perceived security threat.

If a particular online message is flagged, the centre will have the right to open it up and see if it has actually unearthed a terror plot or merely snooped on an innocent chat - so obviously no privacy issues there, then.

"The coordination centre will be the first layer of threat monitoring in the country,” deputy national security advisor Vijay Latha Reddy said during the meeting, according to the leaked paperwork. “It would always be in virtual contact with the control room of the internet service providers.”

The Indian government is now said to be working out how many people it needs to staff the new centre as well as liaison roles within each government department.

The news comes as India’s much-publicised dispute with Research In Motion took another turn last week: the BlackBerry maker agreed to set up a BBM server in the country to enable the authorities to monitor traffic running on the service more easily.

Nokia’s Push Mail service is said to be next in line, while Yahoo, Google, Skype and others are thought to be in dialogue with the government about routing their services through servers in the country to ensure all comms channels can be monitored. "

Comment
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The last two paragraphs ares quite revealing - indicating internet service providers, search engines, other software and hardware companies are required by host governments to cooperate in keeping multi-month records of consumers/users data. These commercial bodies also are required to provide software/hardware backdoors that enable government monitoring authorites to access networks and equipment in real time.
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Provision of backdoors is an early and basic developmental requirement for any communications software (including commercial encryption) and hardware - even years before these products are released on the market.

Like airport/aviation security all this cyber/communications security is the cost of keeping us safe :)
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Pete