Poor router security leaves Indians more vulnerable to cyberattacks: Survey

An estimated 65% Indians have never updated their router’s firmware, while 39% have no idea about the presence of firmware in the routers. This was stated by a researchconducted by digital security provider, Avast.

The survey was carried out by Avast in July 2018 and polled over 1,044 consumers in India.

The study hints at how cyber attacks can take advantage of people’s lack of understanding of router security. According to the research, only 23% of Indians login into router’s web administration. It says that only 44% of Indians have changed the login credentials of their router’s web administrative interface.

As per the research, 32% of Indians have never logged into the web administration interface to change the factory login credentials. Of the total people surveyed, 65% have never updated the router’s firmware. The survey found out that only 33% of Indians login into the router’s interface one a year or less to check for updates.

The research suggests that this leaves routers vulnerable to malware. It said that in May this year, an estimated 700,000 routers around the world were diagnosed as vulnerable to malware with SSL stripping capabilities. To date, routers in 54 countries are affected, including Linksys, NETGEAR, D-Link, Huawei and Asus models, the research stated.

Martin Hron, Security Researcher at Avast, said, “An individual’s local network is only as strong as the weakest link in the chain, and more often than not it is the router that is the greatest point of vulnerability. The router is frequently misunderstood or overlooked, but it’s arguably the most important device as it acts as the gateway to the internet. By connecting multiple devices and allowing them to share data with one another while managing incoming and outgoing web-traffic, it’s a natural target for bad actors who are intent on gathering sensitive personal information, such as bank login details, and exploiting the devices paired to it, such as IoT devices. As a bare minimum, people should be changing the default usernames and passwords on their routers as soon as they’re installed, and proactively check for firmware updates.”

Huawei’s Kirin 980 processor leaked online, reveals clock speed and more

Huawei reportedly appears all set to launch its next-generation flagship chipset HiSilicon Kirin 980. The all-new SoC will succeed the company's current generation Kirin 970. Reports coming from China suggest that the processor may launch at the upcoming IFA 2018 trade show in Berlin, Germany.

Rumoured specifications of Kirin 980 SoCAccording to a report, the upcoming Kirin 980 SoC will be clocked at 2.8GHz and will be built by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturer Company (TSMC) on 7nm architecture. The new chip is expected to have quad-core of Cortex A77 and Cortex A55 CPUs.

The leaks also suggest that the upcoming Kirin processor will come with Huawei’s own graphics processor, instead of Mali GPU to provide almost 1.5 times better graphics performance than the Snapdragon processors. It is also said to be equipped with the company’s own GPU Turbo technology for graphics acceleration.

The rumours have further revealed that the upcoming chipset could come with the LTE Cat 19 for high-speed internet connectivity.

Apart from this, the Kirin 980 is also rumoured to come with the second generation of NPU unit for better machine-learning and artificial intelligence-powered features. The latest NPU unit is developed by Cambricon Technologies and the company claims 5 trillion calculations per watt from the next-generation NPU unit.

The alleged benchmark scores of Kirin 980-powered Huawei Mate 20 Pro are 356,819. Looking at the competion, the ANTUTU score of Snapdragon 845-powered OnePlus 6 is 282,275.

On a related note, Huawei recently launched the successor of its mid-range processor HiSilicon Kirin 659 processor. Dubbed as Kirin 710, it is a combination of a 2.2 GHz Cortex A73 CPU and Cortex A53 clocked at 1.7GHz. The processor is based on a 10nm architecture of the company.

Government gives a written reply on iPhone manufacturing in Lok Sabha

Technology major Applehas started making certain models of iPhonein Bengaluru through a contract manufacturer, Parliament was informed today.

"While Apple has already started manufacturing of certain models of iPhone in Bengaluru through a contract manufacturer, details of private business decisions are not maintained by the Centre," Minister of State for Commerce and Industry C R Chaudhary said in a written reply to Lok Sabha.

The government has received representations seeking concessions including duty exemption on manufacturing and repair units, components, capital equipment and consumables for smartphone manufacturing, which have not been accepted, he said.

In a separate reply, the minister said as on July 15, 16,324 applications have been received of which 11,129 have been recognised as startups.

TCS, Dell, IBM, HCL and others in race to build India’s next big supercomputers

India is expected to have its first supercomputer of Rs 4,500-crore National Supercomputing Mission (NSM) by December. The first phase of the NSM is focused on assembling the supercomputers, the build element will be part of the second phase. If things stay on track, IIT-Kharagpur will have a 1.3 petaflop machine and IISER Pune and IIT-BHU will have a 650 teraflop computer each by the year-end.

The Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) is evaluating the technical bids by firms such as Acer, Fujitsu, IBM, HCL, TCS, Dell and Netweb and the contract is likely to be awarded soon. “The project is not just building a supercomputer but also applications and that work hasn’t stopped. All other parts of the process are on track,” Hemant Darbari, director general, C-DAC told ET.

C-DAC, along with the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bengaluru, is spearheading this project which was announced with much fanfare in 2015.

However, it hasn’t been all smooth sailing. A person closely involved with the NSM said that there had been a number of delays over the past three years, largely because the project still doesn’t have one dedicated person heading it.

Funding has been another issue. Only a portion of the Rs 4,500 crore allocated towards the project has been released so far and there are concerns that the delay could result in costs rising further.

The NSM is to be jointly implemented by the Department of Science and Technology (DST) and Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY) at an estimated cost of Rs 4,500 crore over a period of seven years.

Another person closely following the NSM said that things tended to move slower if there was more than one government department involved, as is the case here. The NSM was announced three years ago with an intent to propel India higher in the global supercomputer rankings. The aim was to install a grid of 73 supercomputers at academic and research institutions across the country, working on a wide range of applications, from weather forecasting to disaster management. S Sadagopan, director at IIIT-Bengaluru, said a three-year delay was actually not bad, given traditionally these projects used to take much longer. “CDAC was set up with a mission to focus on supercomputing, but over the years it has been asked to do too many other things, which has impacted its performance. Most of the brainpower comes from the IITs, IIITs and NITs, but here CDAC has to compete with research grants from private companies like Google which are more attractive to the scientists,” he said. This again, has an impact on the kind of talent available for the NSM.

As per the initial plan, while some components would be imported, some, like server-board assemblies, cooling solutions, power supply and storage systems would be manufactured in India with an aim to make 50% of the components locally over time. High-performance computing is important if India wants to make significant progress in areas like weather forecasting, drug discovery, astrophysics and bioinformatics. NVIDIA recently announced that it would set up India’s first artificial intelligence powered supercomputer. MD Vishal Dhupar said the NSM was an important initiative for India as it needed to be able to apply high performance computing to available data to improve models.

5G smartphones will support faster internet speeds by next year; courtesy Qualcomm

Qualcomm seems to have made a big leap in the 5G network segment by launching the new QTM052 mmWave antenna modules. These modules will essentially make 5G smartphones achieve even higher internet speeds in a much easier way.

This is being called a big leap because until now it was difficult to tap on the millimetre waves because of the weak signal interference could’ve been easily disturbed by nearly any object, even if your hand comes in between a transmitter and receiver. The newly-launched QTM052 mmWave antenna module along with QPM56xx sub-6 GHz radio frequency is claimed to have solved this issue. It can bounce signals off from surfaces and connect accurately with the nearest 5G tower.

These modules are said to come as a part of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X50 5G modem that is scheduled to arrive in smartphones in the first half of 2019. The company has confirmed to Engadget that it has already shipped the samples to device partners. The firm will be discussing with device partners on where to place them on a smartphone to get the best signal reception.

Also mentioned is that since the Snapdragon X50 5G modem is designed in such a manner that it will have four antennas for each side of the smartphone and the signals won’t be disturbed no matter how you hold your handset. It has been said that X50 modem with QTM052 mmWave antenna modules can potentially reach the peak download speed of 5Gbps. This is faster than a typical 4G connection that has 70Mbps download speeds.

The company says that the mobile hotspots are likely to be the first in line to get these modules followed by smartphones.

Qualcomm already announced that MWC that it is working with around 20 manufacturers who will be using the company’s 5G tech. The list includes Nokia, Asus, OnePlus, Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo, ZTE among others.

Incidents of data breach in India more than global average

NEW DELHI: Data breach incidents in India have been higher compared to the global average, according to a survey conducted by defence grade technology maker Thales.

"Around 52 per cent of Indian respondents reported a data breach last year, way above the global average of around 36 per cent. A full three quarters (75 per cent) of respondents in India reported data breach at some time in the past, compared with just 67 per cent globally," James Cook, sales director South Asia, Thales eSecurity told PTI while sharing details of Thales Data Threat Report 2018.

Thales, a Rafale aircraft vendor, globally surveyed over 1,200 senior IT security managers, including 100 in India between October-November 2017.

Indian companies with revenue in the range of $100 million to $1 billion were covered in the study.

"This year's India Data Threat Report 2018 emphasizes the need for change in security strategies to prevent the continuous increase in data breaches and also highlights privacy and data protection practices," Emmanuel de Roquefeuil, vice-president and country director, Thales in India said.

Cook said that security breach is higher in India because they have been spending their budget either at wrong places or were more focused only at the endpoints.

According to the study, 81 per cent respondents lay emphasis on the endpoint or mobile defences - which is ranked at the top in terms of spending plans, while data-at-rest stood at the bottom with 54 per cent.

Data-at-rest is that information saved in archives, hard drives, thumb drives etc which may not be put to use frequently.

Cook said that Aadhaar is driving security spent in India and 93 per cent of organisations surveyed in the country are planning to increase their budget on IT security -- which is the highest in the world.

According to the report, strict privacy guidelines concerning Aadhaar, a 12-digit unique number, are driving far more Indian organisations to plan IT security spending increases than any other geographic or vertical market sector.

The study found that interest in data sovereignty continues to heat up as new data privacy regulations take effect.

Around 85 per cent of Indian respondents said they are affected by data privacy requirements compared to 87 per cent globally.

"In India, the top choice for satisfying data privacy laws is encryption at 30 per cent compared to 42 per cent globally, where it is also the top choice, followed by tokenisation at 25 per cent versus 20 per cent globally," the study said.

The study found that Indian companies are adopting advanced technologies like big data, internet-of-things, mobile payments, blockchain at large levels.

All companies surveyed in India were using cloud technology, with 92 per cent of respondents sharing sensitive data on a cloud system.

"We're now at the point where we have to admit that data breaches are the new reality with over half of organizations in India suffering a breach in the last year. In this increasingly data-driven world it is therefore hugely important that organizations take steps to protect that data wherever it is created, shared or stored," Cook said.

Why Apple may be staring at its toughest year in India

NEW DELHI: Apple could be staring at its toughest year in India in recent times, given the sharp fall in shipments in the first half of 2018, as the effects of the company’s change in strategy to chase profitability rather than growth by cutting discounts and distribution channels comes into play, say analysts.

The Cupertino-based smartphone maker recorded a sharp 55% fall in the April-June quarter on-year and a 30% drop sequentially, on the back of an equally bad January-March quarter, where shipments fell 22% on-year and 46% sequentially, as per estimates from Singapore-based Canalys. International Data Corporation (IDC) India, Counterpoint Research and Cybermedia Research — who are yet to reveal their April-June numbers — say their data will also reflect sharp declines for the first half of this year

“2018 could well be the worst year for Apple… market share drop is expected for the full year given the weak second quarter,” said Rushabh Doshi, research manager at Singapore-based research firm Canalys.

This could well result in a sharp decline for the iPhone maker’s market share in India — where it has been struggling to expand its toe-hold for many years – if it does not manage strong growth in the present and October-December quarters, when its shipments historically tend to pick up on the back of new flagship launches.

But competition in the premium market — where Apple has been traditionally strong — has also intensified with new entrants like OnePlus marking a strong presence, besides a resurgent Samsung, say experts.

“In the premium segment alone, Apple’s share fell to 20% in the January-March quarter this year, compared to 43% last year,” said Counterpoint Research’s analyst Shobhit Srivastava. He expects Apple’s overall market share in India to fall to anywhere between 1.5% and 2% — from around 3% — unless the company stages a remarkable turnaround in the second half.

Faisal Kawoosa, head, new initiatives, Cybermedia Research, said that Apple is not in a “good situation at all, it will be a very challenging year for them”.

Sector watchers say that Apple needs to recognise the heterogeneity of the fast growing Indian market to succeed here, and develop a strategy that includes expanding retail presence in India, building further on its brand presence and manufacturing more models locally to save on import duties, which will give consumers better or more affordable prices.

Since 2014, the company’s shipments have been rising consistently. In 2015, it shipped in nearly 1.8 million phones, followed by 2.8 million in 2016 and the highest shipment of 3.2 million during last year, as per Counterpoint Research. However, in the first half of 2018, the company has shipped only 850,000 units in India, which is 30% lower than what it shipped in the same time last year, IDC India told ET.

In the past few months, Apple has curtailed distribution to two partners — Ingram Micro and Redington — thereby reducing its retail channel to those who can control pricing. Industry insiders add that retailers have been asked not to give any additional discounts, apart from that offered by the company, which has followed a recent change in top management and some executives leaving Indian operations.

While Apple did not comment on this story, sector watchers said that the iconic smartphone maker must focus on India far more than it is doing at present, by recognising the diversity in the Indian market, especially in terms of pricing and consumer demand, and develop a strategy accordingly.

“The brand wants to sell one product all around the world, but it will have to change that mindset to be successful in a country like India, where customers aspire to own an iPhone but at affordable prices. So, there have to be more models at lower price points than just iPhone X,” CMR’s Kawoosa added.

Counterpoint’s Srivastava said that Apple needs to also manufacture more models in India than just the iPhone 6, as it will directly reduce prices for consumers by about 20%, which is the import duty the company pays on every phone. It is also the reason why the iPhone is the most expensive in India, compared to other global markets like the US or Singapore.

Robot themed restaurant opened in Coimbatore

COIMBATORE: A concept seen in “Avengers” and other super hero movies and maybe in restaurants abroad has now come to Coimbatore. A group of five youngsters, who are passionate about theme-based restaurants, have opened a robot themed restaurant in the city.

Robots pick up the food from the kitchen and deliver it at the customer’s table. Customers can pick up the food from the tray.

The robot will also be able to detect someone blocking its way and request them to move out of their way.

“When one of our partners, Venkatesh, travelled abroad, robots served him at some restaurants in China and even Africa,” said Karthikeyan, one of the five partners of the restaurant. “He decided to bring the concept to India,” he said.

The youths, who were already running an aeroplane themed Chinese restaurant, began working on sourcing robots that could serve in restaurants and figuring out how to program and repair them.

“We finally sourced them from a company abroad. Venkatesh then went to the company and spent some time learning to program them, operate them and even repair them,” said Karthikeyan.

“We started our first restaurant on the Old Mahabalipuram Road in Chennaiaround eight months ago and named it Robot Themed Restaurant. It was a success, and many of our customers who visited the restaurant wanted us to come to Coimbatore. So we began working on it,” he said.

The Coimbatore restaurant, which serves Chinese, Thai and Indian food, has eight robots. Customers can place their order on an iPad. The food prepared by chefs is then transferred to the tray held by robots and they are programmed to serve it at the specific table. However, servers are employed to serve the food from the robot’s tray to the customer’s plate.

“We decided to employ servers so that they can explain the names of the dishes to the customers because we have many varieties of breads, fried rice and gravies,” said Karthikeyan.

“Currently we have not been able to reduce staff strength because we have two people to operate the robots alone,” he said.

The robots cost around Rs 7 lakh each

Singapore says hackers stole 1.5 million health records in cyberattack

Hackers have stolen the health records of 1.5 million Singaporeans including Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, authorities said Friday, with the leader specifically targeted in the city-state's biggest ever data breach.

Singapore's health and information ministries said a government database was broken into in a "deliberate, targeted and well-planned" strike, describing the attack as "unprecedented".

"Attackers specifically and repeatedly targeted the personal particulars and outpatient information of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong," health minister Gan Kim Yong told a press conference.

Forensic analysis by Singapore's Cyber Security Agency "indicates this is a deliberate, targeted, and well-planned cyberattack and not the work of casual hackers or criminal gangs," he added.

Officials declined to comment on the identity of the hackers, citing "operational security", but said the prime minister's data has not shown up anywhere on the internet.

"I don't know what the attackers were hoping to find. Perhaps they were hunting for some dark state secret, or at least something to embarrass me," Lee wrote on Facebook.

"My medication data is not something I would ordinarily tell people about, but there is nothing alarming in it."

Hackers used a computer infected with malware to gain access to the database between June 27 and July 4 before administrators spotted "unusual activity", authorities said.

The compromised data includes personal information and medication dispensed to patients, but medical records and clinical notes have not been affected, the health and communications ministries said.

Data for sale
"Health records contain information that is valuable to governments," said Eric Hoh, Asia-Pacific president of cyber-security firm FireEye.

"Nation states increasingly collect intelligence through cyber-espionage operations which exploit the very technology we rely upon in our daily lives."

Earlier this month, the US National Intelligence Director Dan Coats described Russia, China, Iran and North Korea as the "worst offenders" when it came to attacks on American "digital infrastructure".

Some hackers have in the past offered stolen data and software for sale online.

Wealthy Singapore is hyper-connected and on a drive to digitise government records and essential services, including medical records which public hospitals and clinics can share via a centralised database.

But authorities have put the brakes on these plans while they investigate the cyberattack. A former judge will head a committee looking into the incident.

While the city-state has some of the most advanced military weaponry in the region, the government says it fends off thousands of cyberattacks every day and has long warned of breaches by actors as varied as high-school students in their basements to nation states.

In his Facebook post about the attack, Lee warned that "those trying to break into our data systems are extremely skilled and determined. They have huge resources, and never give up trying."

Following the announcement, Singapore's cyber security agency has also put out two advisories advising web administrators and members of the public to protect personal data. This included complex instructions to secure website domains and just simply watching out for suspicious information requests.

A new Cybersecurity Act passed earlier this year requires those providing essential services -- including government, healthcare and security -- to secure their web infrastructure and report any major incidents.

In 2017, hackers broke into a defence ministry database, stealing the information of some 850 army conscripts and ministry staff.