UID to be rolled out in August: Nilekani  
February 15, 2010
Source: TNN

BANGALORE: The much-awaited Unique Identification Number scheme is likely to roll out pilot projects by August 2010, Nandan Nilekani said after receiving the Citizen Extraordinaire Award 2010 on Saturday. The award function was organized by Prestige Group in association with Rotary Bangalore, Midtown.

Chairperson of the Unique Identification Authority of India, Nilekani said his link with Bangalore dates back to his birth at the Vani Vilas Hospital and early education at Bishop Cotton School.

“Nearly 75 million people in the country are still homeless and don’t have an address. This is why they lose out on a host of benefits . Identity has created a barrier . At the same time, migration is increasing,” he added.

Nilekani said more and more money is being spent on public welfare. He cited projects like the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, on which Rs 39,000 crore has been spent, and the right to education on which Rs 1.71 lakh is being spent. The right to food, which is about to be implemented, also involves crores. “As India develops, social programmes targeted at individuals will increase. We need a robust way of identifying individuals who are genuinely poor and not getting any benefits,” he said.

The first part of the UID project involves enrolling everyone at stations where people can give thumb impressions, get their iris scanned and photograph taken. In the next 5 years, around 600 million people are likely to be covered.

“A foundation of soft infrastructure is important. In the 60s and 70s, the slogan was rotikapda-maakan . Later, it became bijili-sadak-paani . Now, it has become UID, mobile phones and bank accounts. This project has a lot of socio-economic implications ,” Nilekani added.

Prestige Group MD Irfan Razack said: “If being Bangalored is an international buzzword today, Nilekani is among those responsible for it. From pensioner’s paradise , he has transformed this city to the epicentre of information technology revolution.”

Scareware menace on the rise as more users log in
February 15, 2010
Source: ET Bureau

BANGALORE: As you start browsing, a window pops up trying to grab your attention by identifying an ‘infection’ in your system, and coaxing you to install a program—and even pay for it — to fix the security breach. Fine, where is the problem? Only that the program that claims to fix your PC’s security woes is a fake — often called a rogue software. Rogue security software or ‘scareware’ pretends to be a legitimate one, provide little or no value and may even install malicious code.

While rogue softwares have been there for a while, experts say the menace is rising. Security solutions firm Symantec points to rising vulnerability as more people, not necessarily regular computer users, are logging onto the digital economy.

This implies that critical personal financial information from a larger set is piling up on the net. Which, says Symantec’s VP for India product operations, Shantanu Ghosh, is leading to cyber criminals using persuasive online scare tactics to convince users to purchase rogue security software.

“Our study reveals that with growth in broadband penetration, scareware is a concern that would affect consumers and enterprises alike,” he adds.

Microsoft’s most-recent semi-annual Security Intelligence Report also points out that rogue security software has become more prevalent lately, more than doubling in volume over the past year. “It remained the single largest threat category for the first half of 2009 and Microsoft’s products and services removed malware from more than 13 million computers worldwide,” the report quantifies.

Kaspersky Lab detected about 20,000 rogue antivirus programs in the first half of 2009, more than double from 8,000 identified in the first half of 2008.

The reason these rogues are created is because they generate huge money. They are promoted through affiliate programs where affiliates get paid a certain amount, as high as $30, every time the rogue is installed, an internet security expert told ET.

The FBI had issued an Intelligence Note last December, warning of a surge in rogue antivirus tricking people into buying the phony software.

The FBI note estimates the rogue antivirus loss to victims to top $150 million.