HEADERS – INTERNATIONAL
News: Telecom
authorities block 120 sender IDs for bulk messaging over China link
What's in the news?
● As
many as 120 headers operated by a group linked to a Chinese entity were blocked
by telecom authorities in the past two months based on information provided by
the Union Home Ministry.
Key takeaways:
● An
investigation by the Indian Cyber Crime
Coordination Centre (I4C) under the Ministry of Home Affairs found that the
headers were hosted from China.
● Citing
an example, a Ministry official said that the header of West Bengal State
Electricity Distribution – WBSEDC - was compromised and taken over by a Chinese
host.
● The
headers were misused to dupe consumers who received messages pertaining to
outstanding electricity bills.
● The
SMS contained malicious links, which
when clicked would lead to financial loss for the consumer as the hacker would
get access to the person’s phone. Consumers would fall for it as the header
genuinely belongs to the State electricity distribution company.
Headers:
● Header,
also known as sender ID, is a unique
combination of characters or numbers representing the brand or company name
of the message sender.
● Headers
are used by banks, marketing companies,
utility providers and even government offices to send bulk texts (SMS) to
consumers and customers.
Go back to basics:
I4C:
● The
Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) was inaugurated by the government
to deal with all types of cybercrimes in a comprehensive and coordinated
manner.
● It
will be set up under the newly created Cyber and Information Security (CIS)
division of the Ministry of Home Affairs.
Components of I4C:
It
has seven components.
● National
Cyber Crime Threat Analytics Unit
● National
Cyber Crime Reporting Portal
● National
Cyber Crime Training Centre
● National
Cyber Crime Research and Innovation Centre
● National
Cyber Crime Forensic Laboratory Ecosystem
● Platform
for Joint Cyber Crime Investigation Team
● Cyber
Crime Ecosystem Management Unit.
Functions:
● The
I4C will assist in centralizing cyber
security investigations, prioritize the development of response tools and
bring together private companies to contain the menace.
Threat Analytical Unit (TAU):
● The
Centre has been trying to strengthen I4C that was started in 2020. The Threat
Analytical Unit (TAU) of the I4C analyses the pattern of financial crimes and
● frauds
and sends reports to central agencies such as the National Investigation Agency
(NIA), Enforcement Directorate or State police forces.
● The
TAU recently flagged to the authorities that scammers were trawling consumer
redressal websites of banks and other commercial firms to dupe people.