Cyber attacks are on rise all over the world. Some cyber attacks are driven by profit motive whereas others are part and parcel of a larger motive backed by State players and organisations.

We have no universally acceptable cyber law and cyber security treaty. As a result different countries are applying different cyber law and cyber security laws. Further, if the cyber attack in question is supported by State actors, it is next to impossible to punish the culprit. On top of it there is the problem of authorship attribution for cyber attacks at International level.

In the absence of these enabling factors it is very difficult to attribute the blame of cyber attacks upon a particular country. For instance, it cannot be said that China is behind various sophisticated cyber attacks that are traced to be originated from its territory. There are numerous anti forensics methods through which the investigators can be mislead in this regard.

Nevertheless it cannot be denied that both private individuals and State sponsored actors are engaging in cyber attacks of most sophisticated nature.

As per media reports, Norman Shark has discovered a large and sophisticated cyber-attack infrastructure that appears to have originated from India. However, the possibility of it being a State sponsored cyber attack has been ruled out and it is a handiwork of private players.

The attack has been in action for the last three years and it is still in progress. The attack, riding upon a global command and control network, is gathering intelligence from a combination of national security targets and private sector companies.

As per the report it is a coordinated and collaborative attack where a group of attackers based in India may have employed multiple developers tasked with delivering specific malware. The organisation/individuals responsible for this cyber attack is/are well equipped and fully resourced to launch cyber attacks in any part of the world.

The cyber attacks have targeted vast areas of sectors in this regard that include natural resources, telecommunications, law, food and restaurants and manufacturing. This makes it less probable that the attack has been launched for the organisation’s own purposes.

The investigation has also revealed evidence of professional project management practices used to design frameworks, modules, and subcomponents. It seems that individual malware authors were assigned certain tasks, and components were “outsourced” to what appear to be freelance programmers.

A response from India is still awaited in this regard. Meanwhile the CERT-In is already investigating the International ATM heist case and its report is still awaited.