Cybercrime in RBI chief's name

 Rao Jaswant Singh, TNN | Dec 2, 2012, 01.41 AM IST


GURGAON: In what could be described as an online shock for the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) cyber fraudsters posing as RBI governor are now sending phishing emails to unsuspecting persons seeking their banking details in lieu of transferring a hefty amount.

Despite advisory warnings issued by RBI there has been a series of complaints about having received a mail from the address blaire.macphail@sunmedia.ca with the subject Union Pay/ATM Compensation Payment Notification.

A forged letterhead of RBI showing its address as Shantipath in Chanakyapuri New Delhi is an attachment and the mail ends with "Yours in service D Subbarao RBI Governor". 

The letter reads "Reserve Bank of India Union Pay Settlement Committee and the ATM International Inc wishes to congratulate you on the successful emergence in our ongoing fund remittance promo to all ATM card users across the globe.

The mail also asks the mail recipient to furnish personal details including name address contact number age and occupation and a fee of US $350. The mail claims that only after that an amount of $1.8 million will be transferred to their account.

Ironically the mail alerts the customers to stay away from impostors and contact them through the secure code given to them in the email.

A senior bank official said RBI never asks for bank account details of any customer and nor are such mails sent by the bank directly or indirectly. The Cyber Emergency Response Team of India the central agency that monitors all government websites blocks such website after complaints are received.

He also said the bank appeals to the public to not respond to such mails or share their bank account and personal details with anyone for any purpose. "Also the RBI has issued alert on its website" he added.

In case any bank customer has revealed their bank account details in response to such a mail they should immediately alert their respective bank and request them not to transfer any cash.

ipaidabribe.com: A website that encourages Indians to share their bribe giving experiences

ET :2 DEC, 2012, 05.55AM IST, MALINI GOYAL,ET BUREAU 

Something interesting happened in Mumbai last month. For the first time ever, Harvard Business Schoolstepped out of its Boston campus to bring its leadership and corporate accountability programme for senior corporate executives to India. The programme focuses on promoting socially and financially responsible corporate conduct. In an environment where scams and business scandals are making headlines every day, the turnout for the four-day programme was expectedly impressive.

"Corruption is pervasive and also corrosive," saysKarthik Ramanna, one of the Harvard professors who teaches the course. This isn't just about India. 

According to a recent study, corruption is the biggest issue of concern for corporate executives in Russia. It is ranked No. 2 by Indians and No. 5 by the Chinese. "Businesses have to learn to deal with corruption as a phenomenon," he says.

For inspiration, Ramanna is nudging these corporate executives to look at some unusual places. Among the case studies taught, one is on ipaidabribe.com, a website that focuses on petty retail corruption in India. It helps the average Indian post his or her bribery experience and it also uncovers the "market price" of corruption in various cities, departments and services.

According to the website, Delhiites, for example, have paid Rs 500-1,000 for police verification for passports. Mumbaikars have paid a petty Rs 20 to as high as Rs 21 lakh as bribes to the police. "Paying a bribe is a very lonely experience. We want to change that," says Swati Ramanathan, co-founder of Janaagraha, a Bangalore-based NGO that is also steering the ipaidabribe.com initiative.

What have these cases of petty bribery got to do with the large cases of corruption — 2G scam and coalgate are pegged at close to Rs 2 lakh crore — that executives encounter in their businesses? Prevalence and acceptability of corruption in India at every level seems cultural. "We wanted to change the compass of conversation. India needs a firestarter," says Ramanna.

Sunlight is the Best Disinfectant

Ipaidabribe.com provides that platform. The website allows Indians to post their bribe experiences under four distinct categories — I Paid a Bribe (captures incidences of bribery), I Am a Bribe Fighter (experiences where people resisted bribery), I Met an Honest Officer (recognising honest officers) and I Do Not Want to Pay a Bribe (educating Indians how to avoid paying a bribe).

While the website does not allow the mention of names, the naming and shaming of government departments has had some success. For example, the transport commissioner in Bangalore used the website's feedback to reform its procedures and minimise bribery cases with a thrust on automation. For example, licences can now be applied online. In a global first, Bangalore now gives automated driving test tracks to applicants to bring down the discretionary powers of its officials.

The largest number of bribe cases (in value) was being reported from the land registration department. Interestingly, the bribe for the same work varied from Rs 20,000 to Rs 2 lakh in Bangalore city, with higher bribes being asked for in new sought-after areas where transactions were larger. Typically, land can only be registered in the area where it is. Four months back, the chief secretary of Karnataka government took a step to curb it by increasing the number of government offices where the registration could be done.

The website's journey has been impressive. It gets 3,000-5,000 hits every day with 1.4 million hits so far. It has 20,000-plus bribe reports filed from 500 Indian cities. Next year it will boost its reach by focusing on the Hindi heartland. It is also launching a mobile application where people can use their phones to file their bribe reports.

The site is getting some global attention — NGOs from 26 countries showed interest in replicating the model. It is doing very well in Greece. A similar site has been created in Pakistan. Inspired, Bhutan's anti-corruption division has created an online form to allow anonymous reporting of corruption.

In 2014, they are also planning to organise a global meet in India on how to use crowdsourcing to stem corruption. Says Santosh N Hegde, former Lokayukta in Karnataka: "This greed over need is going viral. Everybody wants to get rich as quickly as possible. Public acceptance of corruption is very high. Ipaidabribe.com is pushing to change that."

Cultural Connotation

Corruption has strong cultural linkages. In India, relationship-based transactions are common. Political parties compete in doling out favours to certain castes and groups, thus encouraging corruption. They often use public office for private gain without any qualms. Access to all kinds of services, big or small, public or private — from hospitals to police stations, from schools to sporting events — is determined by personal relationships. "This is my friend and he has to be given special treatment is something Indians are used to," says Ramanna.

25 Worst Passwords of 2012

TIME Tech :Olivia B. Waxman 25 Oct 2012

If any of your passwords are on this list, then shame on you — and go change them now.

SplashData, which makes password-management applications, has released its annual Worst Passwords list compiled from common passwords that are posted by hackers.

 The top three — “password,” “123456″ and “12345678″ — have not changed since last year. New ones include “jesus,” “ninja,” “mustang,” “password1″ and “welcome.” Other passwords have moved up and down on the list.

The most surprising addition is probably “welcome.”

“That means people are not even changing default passwords,” SplashData CEO Morgan Slain tells TIME Tech. “It doesn’t take that much time to make a new password.”

You should have different passwords for all your accounts. To make it easier to remember them all, Slain suggests thinking about passwords as “passphrases.” 

For instance, use a phrase like “dog eats bone” and add underscores, dashes, hyphens and other punctuation marks to satisfy the special-character requirement: “dog_eats_bone!”

MORE: Two-Minute Video: How to Create Strong Online Passwords

Here’s the full list:

1. password
2, 123456
3. 12345678
4. abc123
5. qwerty

6. monkey
7. letmein
8. dragon
9. 111111
10. baseball

11. iloveyou
12. trustno1
13. 1234567
14. sunshine
15. master

16. 123123
17. welcome
18. shadow
19. ashley
20. football

21. jesus
22. michael
23. ninja
24. mustang
25. password1

Single CEOs, Bigger Risk Takers than Married CEOs

SiliconIndia  |   Monday, 26 November 2012, 16:35 IST

Bangalore: If a question of whether or not unmarried CEOs take bigger risks is brought up, definitely the answer would be a ‘YES’. It is found that single CEOs are associated with firms which have higher stock returns and go for investment policies which have greater risk.

Single CEOs would more likely go for capital investments and acquisitions. The basic idea behind this is that, since highly attractive marriage partners are hard to find and scarce, high income earners like CEOs must compete for their attention. Single high income earners value their income more than do married high income earners and these single income earners value each additional dollar they earn more than do married high-income earners. These additional dollars gives them the want and desire to consume more and also develops their chances of finding themselves a better marriage partner

Therefore Single high income earners are encouraged to assume investment policies that are more aggressive and expose shareholders to greater risk in pursuit of more income.

It is also found that single CEOs would be associated firms which exhibit higher stock return and go for investment policies which have greater risk. But it’s seen that this effect is weaker for older CEOs. The impact of marital status is high for risk taking. 

It is also possible that married CEOs prefer less risk and not exactly that single CEOs are willing to go for a higher risk. And in a general sense, single people would not like to go for higher risk while compared to a married couple.

It is also possible that a marriage completely changed the usefulness of wealth in terms or needs and wants, by combining the preferences of the spouse into the CEO’s objective function.

For example, a CEO who has to support a spouse and children may have a higher required level of consumption expenditure and therefore income. This would make married CEOs electively more risk-averse than single ones for reasons that have nothing to do with status. However, under rational expectations the possibility of getting married in the future should apex one's decisions even prior to getting married, and therefore it is ambiguous whether their marriage itself would have an effect on CEO risk taking.