Targetted Trojans
Interesting scandal in Israel and a similar series of attacks in the UK. We have seen mass mailed trojans that employ infected PCs mainly for low level use such as SMTP relays.

What we see now is targetted trojans. Software that attacks Financial companies, software that looks for and only infects conputers designing aircraft. High end attacks aimed at high end computers. The UK's National Infrastructure Security Co-ordination Centre says that it is seeing attacks on political and economic targets. Report here. The source seems to be the Far East.

Related story: U.K. Incidents Show Shift to Targeted Attacks.


Good coverage on the Israeli story from MSNBC
Israel espionage case points to new Net threat and Computerworld.


The main problem with these attacks is that your usual anti-virus software will not detect the trojan as the AV company will not have seen it. The software and the delivery has been customised just for you! The Israeli Trojan (called 'Rona') was sent to the target on a CD, pretending to be a business proposal. Anyone running Windows would have Rona installed.
- posted @ Tuesday, June 21, 2005

 
PTCL sold
The Etisalat/Dubai Islamic Bank consortium won the auction held by the Privatisation Commission of the Govt. of Pakistan. The winning consortium bid at US$2.5 billion was US$1 billion more than the next highest offer. China Mobile bid US$1.409 billion and SingTel US$1.167 billion.

What does this mean for telecoms in Pakistan?
For the industry this is good news and this is bad news. Etisalat will be a formidable competitor but will also be a much better supplier than the old PTCL. Smaller companies will be much better off as they will see better levels of service - fewer opportunities for staff to extort money. Larger competitors like WorldCall and Telecard will face much stiffer competition as they go after the same clients as the new PTCL.

For consumers we should see much better service levels, though whether prices will go up or down remains to be seen. Having had to get a phone line application signed by the (Federal) Telecoms Minister on one occasion and been asked to pay Rs100,000 to get a phone line shifted I can only expect things to get better.

How much better is the question we are all asking. The staff is the same. Can they be re-educated? Is customer service something that they can be expected to understand or even give? It seems unlikely.
Certainly PTCL is excessively overstaffed and could lose half its employees.

We wait and hope.

PakLink
Al Jazeera
Xinhua
Forbes
BBC
- posted @ Tuesday, June 21, 2005

 
PTCL - privatisation is on
Some Union leaders have agreed to call of sabotage threats after the Interior minister reminded them of anti-terrorism laws. Other leaders are not so accomodating, but it does seem that the sell off will go ahead as planned.

The amy signal corps are in control of the most sensitive locations, like international gateways and there is little that the unions can do. In any case PTCL engineers do not have the training or the inclination to actually control the internals of most of the exchanges. This is done by the vendors.


http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level.php?cat=Business&loid=8.0.176987316&par=0
- posted @ Wednesday, June 15, 2005

 
PTCL privatization contd.
The Govt. of Pakistan set June 18, 2005 as the new date for selling off 26% of PTCL and handing over management control to the new buyers.
The Unions opposing this immediately called for a strike but were preempted by the arrival of paramilitary Rangers and also Police at Exchanges and PTCL offices. Upto 300 PTCL workers have been targetted by the security forces for arrest. Where the wanted person was not found, relatives (including female relatives) have been arrested/detained.

Looks like there is not going to be any sabotage or other disruption of services. In fact things should get better than normal as any failure of service is likely to be looked upon as sabotage.

It has been estimated that 50% to 70% of PTCL workers are surplus to normal requirements.


GEO
Hindu, India
- posted @ Monday, June 13, 2005

 
Mobilink Hearing at PTA
JANG, KARACHI: Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) - the telecom watchdog in the country - on Tuesday issued a hearing notice to Mobilink, which would be conducted on June 9.

Sources close to telecom regulator told ‘The News’ that in its reply to PTA, Mobilink said its service was affected due to the problems arising in the system of Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL), however, the telecom watchdog has rejected this justification of the said company.

The Authority has described the reply submitted by Mobilink in response of April 2005 show cause notice as unsatisfactory. In the Hearing Notice PTA has also directed him to appear on the fixed date and time with a copy of written arguments for the Authority.

It may be recalled that the telecom watchdog had issued show cause notice in April 2005 to initiate proceedings against Mobilink, based on the results of the fourth Quality of Service (QoS) survey conducted by the Authority.

PTA gave 30 days to the operator to submit the reply and Mobilink had submitted its detailed reply on May 03, 2005.
- posted @ Wednesday, June 08, 2005

 
PTCL Strike and the PC
A threatened strike on the 6th of June by workers (we use that term loosely here) of PTCL brings the planned privatisation of the corporation to a halt. The workers had occupied the PTCL HQ building as well as demonstrated in several cities.

It may that the Govt. is buying time to buy off the leaders or to intimidate them but then there have been many many U turns recently. The Privatisation Commission is holding talks with the Union leaders and we can be sure that the Intelligence agencies are in there also.

Major corporate customers are in a panic and many are looking for emergency backup services in case the PTCL network goes down. Looks like what is bad for PTCL will be good for the new competitors.

Labels: Infrastructure, PTCL

- posted @ Monday, June 06, 2005