Article in the Economic Times today (or tomorrow as it is not quite July 20th in my part of the world) states that "Indian geeks rated good citizens in cyber city." Indians it turns out are not one of the top producers of Malware in the world...ranking a mere 11 on the 1-12 scale.
Malware is a fancy word for a malicious program bad guys like to drop on your desktop usually through a piece of spam that asks you to download the file. Viruses are the most commonly known pieces of malware and the general public expects to be protected by these types of programs by their anti-virus software. The computer security community is starting to use the term malware in a different way over the past few years as a term that describes a program that remains undetected by anti-virus software. An elite program if you will, one that is distributed in a way that remains undetected. A very good recent example of this is was in the news a few days back. Several companies were targeted using a sleuth method that sent malware to specific organizations in a way that fell under the radar of the anti-virus companies that traditionally detect these attacks. Unisys, Booze Allen Hamilton, and Hewlett Packard were some of the companies that feel victim to this phishing attack.
The general assumption is that the most dangerous "hackers" living inside our computer networks today reside in foreign countries; most notably China and Russia followed by Romania. These countries are notorious for having bad laws to fight computer crime and a flagrant disregard by our government as well as theirs to fight back. Whats interesting is the thinking behind who is sending out these attacks as opposed to who has the talent and skill sets to be doing so---the keys to the castle if you will. Can it be argued, as Nandkumar Saravade, director of cyber-security at NASSCOM that "India's strong cultural values act as a dampener for any illegal activities"?
Lets take a look at the some of the categories for cultural thinking in an Indian context that I always fall back on:
1.) Hindu Faith: Over 85% of the country is Hindu. Most believe in reincarnation which focuses very much on activities in the present life being an indicator for the next. In other words, do good, come back as a person of a higher caste. Do bad and come back as a low caste member or some type of animal.
2.) Hierarchy: Indians have a strong system of hierarchy inside their families and their organizations. Elders rule (although I wonder how many of them are aware of the malware problem facing the world). The tone of what is right and wrong is very strong through this system with elders setting the stage for the underlings.
3.) Communication Style: Indians communicate indirectly using extensive colloquy that is formal British English. Are Indians the right people to be implementing a plan to send attractive spam any where else in the world that would be read without immediate detection? Dear sir or madam, kindly enter your password to your bank account.... (little humor here folks)
These are a few things that come to mind immediately...maybe the assumption that their culture is a major force around India's low malware development. But perhaps a more logical answer is availabe, like the idea that only 2% of India's population has access to computers...and that 2% has job offers around every corner. The economic conditions for computer programs inside India are thriving, unlike the other countries that rank so high on the list. This of course does little to explain why the US is number one.