[ISN] Terrorists targeted India's outsourcing industry

[InfoSec News]

http://www.nwfusion.com/news/2005/0307terrotarge.html

By John Ribeiro
IDG News Service
03/07/05

India's software and services outsourcing industry is a likely target
for a terrorist group operating in the country, local police warned on
Sunday. But Indian outsourcing and software companies said they are
prepared to cope with the threat.

Documents seized from three members of the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT)  
terrorist group killed in an encounter with the police on Saturday
revealed that they planned to carry out suicide attacks on software
companies in Bangalore, Karnal Singh, joint commissioner of police in
Delhi, told reporters on Sunday.

LeT is demanding independence for the Indian state of Jammu and
Kashmir. The Indian government has claimed that LeT and other
separatist groups are aided and abetted by neighboring Pakistan, which
also occupies a part of the disputed territory of Kashmir.

"The terrorists planned to hit these companies in an effort to hinder
the economic development of the country," Singh said.

Bangalore has a large concentration of Indian software outsourcing
companies, and a number of multinational companies have software
development and chip design facilities in the city.

IBM, Intel, Texas Instruments, and Accenture are among those with
operations in Bangalore. Two of India's largest software and IT
services outsourcing companies, Wipro and Infosys Technologies, have
their headquarters and large facilities in Bangalore. Bangalore also
has some of India's key defense research and development
organizations.

Most of the technology companies in the city have already set up
disaster recovery plans and special disaster recovery sites that could
be used in the event of a terrorist attack, according to Kiran Karnik,
president of the National Association of Software and Service
Companies in Delhi. For example, Infosys has a disaster recovery site
in Mauritius.

Besides tight checks on physical entry into their facilities, Indian
software companies have business continuity and disaster recovery
plans in place to ensure that a terrorist attack does not disrupt
their operations, Karnik said. Terrorism is a global problem and the
threat in India is not greater than that in other countries, he said.