Moneylife : TCS restores its website after hackers put it up for sale

March 21,2010 | Last update 23 hours ago

Most Recent Additions

March 20	The bitter-sweet truth about these
March 20	Down to sideways action
March 19	Regulator acts like an industry
March 19	Markets taking the path of least
March 19	Bank harassment driving SSI units to
March 19	Union Cabinet approves major education

Commentary

New Banks: Will RBI Relent?

The RBI has barely suppressed its dismay over the finance minister’s announcement that the apex bank is considering Read more...

RSS Feeds
Subscribe for Updates

Newsletters
Free Daily Updates

Kensource Stockletters
Subscribe Now!

What's HOT?

Knowledge Series Books
Pathbreaker Series
Gift Subscription

Shopping

Moneylife Events

Sanjay Nirupam, Member of Parliament, inaugurating the Moneylife Knowledge Centre on 6 February 2010.

Moneylife, in association with Reliance Mutual Fund, organised the Big Ideas Essay Contest on “Taking Financial Markets to the Masses,” on 5 December 2009.

Moneylife Foundation organised an open discussion on "Budget and You" on 27 February 2010. The participants were presented with a detailed analysis of the implications of the Budget proposals.

About Moneylife
Contact Us

TCS restores its website after hackers put it up for sale
February 08, 2010 11:20 AM

Moneylife Digital Team
TCS

The Tata group company has restored its website tcs.com after hackers allegedly changed its domain name and put it up for sale

Tata Consultancy Services Ltd, (TCS), India's largest software company, has restored its website tcs.com after hackers allegedly changed its domain name and put it up for sale.

The Internet Protocol (IP) address of TCS's website is 216.15.200.140. However, the hackers changed it to 205.178.152.154, re-pointing the name server (NS) records of the company's website which may have been done by breaking into the NS or the registrar account, said a cyber-security expert.

The most prominent types of name servers in operation today are the name servers of the Domain Name System (DNS), one of the two principal name spaces of the Internet. The most important function of these DNS servers is the translation (resolution) of humanly memorable domain names (for example tcs.co) and hostnames into the corresponding numeric IP addresses (216.15.xxx.xxx), the second principle Internet name space, used to identify and locate computer systems and resources on the Internet.

Incidentally, the changed domain ID, 205.178.152.154, shows the ISP name as Network Solutions LLC, which is the registrar of tcs.com as well. So primarily, it appears that someone might have entered into TCS's registrar account; possible using a compromised password, added another expert.

According to a report from plugged.in, the hackers had put up the domain name 'tcs.com' for sale and even provided their e-mail id 'abed_uk@hotmail.com', besides displaying a whos.among.us widget to display how many people are on the site at any given point. Although TCS has now restored its website, this incident has raised many questions on the alleged breach of security as well as the expertise of Indian engineers.

Submit your comments

2 Comments

C&C 1 month ago
READ HOW THE Times of India reaps stories from others....here is the TOI story.. Hackers put TCS site `On Sale' 8 Feb, 2010, 1647 hrs IST, Indiatimes Infotech, Print Email Discuss Share Save Comment Text: NEW DELHI: Tata Consultancy Services Ltd (TCS), India's largest software company, has restored its website tcs.com after hackers reportedly changed its domain name. The hacker posted a "For Sale" message on the site, which was reportedly written in both French and English. The hack is believed to be a DNS hijack, similar to the attack that Twitter succumbed to in 2009. According to a report in plugged.in, the hackers also provided their email id 'abed_uk@hotmail.com', besides displaying a whos.among.us widget to display how many people are on the site at any given point. (http://infotech.indiatimes.com/News-Software__Services-Hackers_put_TCS_site_On_Sale/articleshow/5548640.cms) SHAME!
http://www.moneylife » Link » Report abuse

Shadi Katyal 1 month ago
Would like to know more about what if any action is being taken against the hacker. How long it took for TCS to realise that they had been hacked? It will cost TCS with clients for nat having security etc.
http://www.moneylife » Link » Report abuse

What's Hot
From this section

The bitter-sweet truth about these alphonso magoes
Beware! Many street vendors are selling alphonso mangoes, which are 'fake' and artificially ripened using chemicals, under the pretext of selling Ratnagiri or Devgad alphonso
Regulator acts like an industry association; IRDA promotes ULIPs!
The insurance regulator has launched an unprecedented advertising campaign, hard-selling ULIPs. Not only is this a bizarre action for a regulator, but the ad is also misleading as it fails to provide any concrete evidence of ULIPs’ superior performance
Bank harassment driving SSI units to sickness
Infinity Metals, an export-oriented SSI unit, has been struggling to keep itself afloat after its bank systematically abused the SARFAESI Act and harassed it into near-bankruptcy. Denied justice by the ombudsman, the troubled unit is now left gasping for breath
Union Cabinet approves major education reform Bills
According to the Bill on Prohibition of Unfair Practices, charging of capitation fee or failure of educational institutions to keep promises of quality education could attract imprisonment up to three years for guilty administrators or a fine up to Rs50 lakh for the institute
A consumer welfare fund to appropriate people’s money
A fresh exercise that completely ignores the fact that large sums of money belonging to individuals, traders and businesses are appropriated by the government and remain impounded with it because of slow, corrupt and inefficient processes

What's Hot
Recent Additions

Reduced NFO period for MFs may limit market penetration, say
SEBI’s new idea to limit the timeframe for NFOs to 15 days will create even greater problems for the fund industry. But most importantly, it will undermine SEBI’s own

UTV Motion Pictures to produce films in south Indian
UMP is planning to produce around five films for south Indian audiences over the next three years

The Swiss banking trail hits the market
An MP from UP has alleged that the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group had diverted funds raised through External Commercial Borrowings and Foreign Currency Convertible Bonds into stock

Coal regulatory authority: When will it see the light of day?
For almost three years, there has been a lot of talk on the setting up of a coal regulatory authority. So why is the government still dragging its feet?

Persistent’s IPO valuation looks attractive
The company’s EPS is expected to be Rs25 in FY10 with price-earnings of 11.92; its peers are currently trading at a P/E between a range of 10.99-15.97

> Promotional Material

Inside
Moneylife Magazine

Look out for regular sections in every issue on -
Current events, Stocks, Mutual Funds, Spending, Insurance, Borrowing, Books, Charity & many more!

Subscribe to Moneylife Magaine now!


Moneylife Shop Pathbreakers Pages - 223 List Price - ~~Rs.1200~~ Our Price: - Rs.1000 Plain Truth about Stock Investing Pages - 96 List Price - ~~Rs.125~~ Our Price: - Rs.100 Plain Truths about Mutual Funds Pages - 104 List Price - ~~Rs.125~~ Our Price: - Rs.100 Plain Truths about Investments Pages - 115 List Price - ~~Rs.125~~ Our Price: - Rs.100
Plenty more interesting articles in the ML Store inside, Gift it to someone else or yourself! Go to Moneylife Shop


Moneylife Navigator	Go Top \| Subscribe Moneylife \| Send a Gift Subscription \| Visit Moneylife Store \| Offers & Promotions \| Moneylife Newsletter \| Useful Resources Newsviewer \| Commentary \| Markets \| Companies & Sectors \| Investing \| Personal Finance \| Small Business \| Life Moneylife Home \| Moneylife Magazine \| Moneylife Shop \| Corporate Moneylife \| Contact Us

	© 2009-10. All rights reserved by Moneywise Media and it's subsidiaries. No contents of Moneylife.in website or Moneylife Magazine shall be reproduced without prior permissions from the authors of Moneylife.in website and/or publisher of Moneylife Magazine. You are bound by Terms and Conditions for using this website any further this point. We maintain standard guidelines of User Privacy and may not disclose private user information to third parties. Write to Moneylife webmaster for all the questions, reports and complaints pertaining to this website.