The new center was formerly located in Alexandria, Va. and Symantec also operates centers in Australia, India and the UK.

Brian Dunphy, a Symantec senior product management director, said the new center provides nearly twice the amount of technical staff.

The security operations centers track known and emerging threats and analyze more than 12 million logs per day.

Signed in New Delhi by Jane Holl Lute, DHS deputy secretary, and R. Chandrashekhar, secretary of the India Department of Information Technology, the MOU helps fulfill the joint commitment of both nations to bolster global security and counter terrorism, one of the pillars of the U.S.-India Strategic Dialogue launched in 2009.

The agreement also establishes best practices for the exchange of critical cybersecurity information and expertise between the two governments. Through this arrangement, the respective governments and cybersecurity communities in both nations will be able to coordinate with their counterparts on various technical and operational cyber issues.

Image: Peter Hires Images

A strong demand for technology has helped push the United States to lead the industry globally, taking first place from third just a year ago, according to a new survey.

Although the senior technology executives polled in KPMG LLP‘s annual Technology Industry Business Climate survey said they perceive the U.S. market driving revenue growth, they feel less optimism about hiring and expectations of mergers and acquisitions.

Respondents said they expect the U.S. market to have the highest percentage of revenue growth and employment growth over the next 12 months. China, Brazil and India follow the U.S. in revenue, while India and China placed second and third in employment.

In the survey, the U.S. market ranked third in expected revenue growth and fourth in employment growth. In addition, tech leaders this year predict the U.S. also will have the industry’s greatest percentage of research and development investment growth, followed by India and China.

In terms of revenue, 77 percent of the respondents expect the overall revenue at their companies to be higher a year from now. Technology executives said their biggest revenue driver over the next three years will be cloud computing, with 65 percent ranking it as the top driver. The second and third ranked revenue drivers in this year’s survey were mobile applications and advanced data analytics.

Renjith Balan, IT adviser of the party, said he discovered the defacement at 7 p.m. The hackers posted several messages on the website, saying they were acting on the behalf of Pakistan. One of the messages said, “Kashmir belongs to Pakistan.” Another said, “Stop dreaming of making Kashmir yours.” New Delhi Television reported the hackers also posted a picture of Pakistan’s founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah.

KPCC tooks its website off-line and filed a police report. The police said they would try to track the IP address of the server used by the hackers.

The website defacers claimed they were members of an anti-India cyber-underground platform, according to The Hindu.

Janet Napolitano, DHS

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and her Qatari counterpart Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa al-Thani have signed a bilateral security accord to better fight terrorism and threats in cyberspace.

“Homeland security does not begin at America’s borders — it starts with our international partnerships to detect and deter terrorists and other individuals who pose a threat to citizens around the world,” the secretary said, according to AFP. “This agreement will help us expand collaboration with Qatar in order to better protect the citizens of both nations against the evolving threats we face.”

AFP reported the agreement seeks to enhance information sharing about individuals with ties to terrorism and serious crime; tightening passenger screening at airports; and sharing methods of document screening, behavior detection and efforts to combat bulk-cash smuggling and money laundering.

The accord will also includes new efforts at increasing cooperation on international aviation security, cybersecurity, disaster response and emergency preparedness.

Napolitano’s visit to Doha followed stops in Ireland and Afghanistan, where she met with top Afghan officials including President Hamid Karzai.

Held in the second largest city in the state of Maharashtra in western India, the Cyber Safe Pune 2010 forum conducted lectures at housing societies, schools and banks.

“We received several queries about social networking sites, mobile thefts, lottery [text messages] and credit-card frauds,” Rajendra Dhale, deputy commissioner of police (cyber), was quoted as saying by DNA India. “We are urging girls not to upload their photographs on social networking sites. We are also urging them not to share personal information while chatting with unknown people. However, people can register mobile theft cases at the police station.”

The deputy commissioner also cautioned about falling for scams that appeal to individuals’ greed, such as bogus lottery notifications. He said 419 scams had increased by 30 percent, and to tackle the problem, “we are urging people not to be greedy and stay away from suspicious [text messages].”

Additionally, many are using sophisticated equipment without fully knowing their functions, which leads to further problems in society, Dhale said. Landlords should be able to provide police with information about their tenants to help fight cyber crime in the city, he added.

FutureBazaar CEO Rajiv Prakash said the company is currently working to tackle the problem internally and also taking a legal action against the hackers.

“We have filed a complaint with the Cyber Crime Branch in Mumbai,” he told Times of India. “Internally, we are working to get the site up and running and it should be fine soon.”

To reduce the business loss, the company has kept its phone commerce active and consumers can make purchases through the same. Although Prakash did not reveal what kind of losses the company may be suffering every day because of the problem, the portal is one of the emerging business verticals of the group, Times of India said.

Photo: Laurie Jones

Cyber crime experts in India are warning about the security flaws of many government websites, claiming the recent cyber attacks by Pakistani hackers have spurred little action in terms of enhanced cybersecurity.

“Websites like that of Income Tax of India has loopholes and it can be hacked easily,” cyber crime expert Sunny Vaghela told MiD-DAY.com. “We have already informed them but they have not patched it yet. Same is the case with the Indian Air Force.”

Others, however, have implemented more security on their website; the Central Bureau of Investigation’s academy and cyber cell Mumbai immediately upgraded their cyber defenses following the recent web assaults, Vaghela said.

Meanwhile, Pakistan Cyber Army has decided to stop the attacks against the Indian websites, hoping its counterpart in India will reciprocate, according to MiD-DAY.

PCA has said it hacked one of the government website in retaliation of Indian hackers defacing dozens of Pakistani websites. In response to PCA’s ceasefire offer, Indian Cyber Army said the objective of cyber attacking Pakistani websites was purely to honor those who died in the Nov. 26, 2008, Mumbai attacks.

“Since our objective was limited to 26/11, we are also putting an end to this cyber attack session,” said a message posted by Indian Cyber Army. “We still own many servers of Pakistan and are prepared to respond to any further attacks from PCA or any other Pakistani hacker group. We are not the right guys to mess around with. Jai Hind!”

According to The Express Tribune, the two hacker collectives have been engaged in a cyber war, attacking each other’s and government-owned websites. Some of these sites include those belonging to the Indian Central Bureau of Investigations and the Pakistan’s Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority, and Jadavpur University Department of Economics.

As of this morning, the Jadavpur University Department of Economics website still displays PCA’s defacement message, saying “Back 0ff ! PCA 0wn3d yew! This is Payback from Pak Cyber Army in return to the Defacement of Pak Government Websites.” The Indian Central Bureau of Investigations website is also inaccessible.

“We always get revenge,” the head of PCA told The Express Tribune. “I do this because I love Pakistan and want to do something ‘big’ for my country,” said the administrator of the website where the PCA collective congregates.