When the Union Public Service Commission web site was compromised recently, it was Finjan Software, which documented it on its blog post. Thanks to Finjan notification to Computer Emergency Response Team – India (CERT India), the infection was cleaned the web site was recovered in double-quick time.
I4S India caught up with Yuval Ben-Itzhak, chief technology officer, Finjan Software and gathered some of his insights on the Indian IT security industry.
Yuval began his professional career as a member of an elite intelligence unit of the Israeli Defence Forces, where he was responsible for the design and development of security systems for mission-critical projects. Yuval was selected as InfoWorld’s “Top 25 Most Influential CTOs of 2004” and Computerworld’s “40 Innovative IT People To Watch, Under the Age of 40” for 2007.
Prior to Finjan, Yuval was the founder and CTO of KaVaDo Inc., a leader in web application security (acquired by Protegrity). Earlier, at KaVaDo, Yuval was CTO at Ness Technologies, a global provider of end-to-end IT solutions and services. As a senior project manager at Intel Corp., Yuval was in charge of the design and development of multi-million dollar software projects. Yuval earned a BSc. in Information Systems and Engineering, cum laude from Ben-Gurion University, Israel.
Cybercrime – global not local
On India’s IT security industry, Yuval feels that India’s security industry is about the same as in EU and US. His company finds and reports on similar issues in all these territories, indicating that the cybercrime problem is global and not local. As government agencies all around the world are still behind in protecting their web assets from cybercrime, Finjan was not surprise to find the UPSC site being compromised.
On the IT security trends that he sees in India, Yuval believes that data stealing malware is the biggest threat for the corporate market. Motivated by money, cybercriminals are looking to compromised corporate computers and install their malware. The malware remains silent (unlike viruses) and send back to the hacker valuable data from the corporate.
Yuval is of the opinion that regulation and data loss as a result of cybercrime will drive India’s security industry forward. As the cybercrime problem is global and hits almost anyone connected to the web, the security industry will need to move forward and protect computers connected to the web with security technologies that operate in real-time, not just signature-based anti-viruses.
