India sends blackbox of crashed C-130J to US for decoding data

March 30, 2014

India-sends-blackboxNew Delhi, Mar 30: The black box of the C-130J transport aircraft that crashed near Gwalior on Friday has suffered damage and the Air Force has sent it to the US to seek the assistance of its manufacturer Lockheed Martin in decoding the data, IAF officials said today.

The connectors of the Flight Data Recorder or the black box are damaged along with the card inside the Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR).

"To avoid any loss of data while trying to decode the equipment, we have decided to send the black box to the US," an IAF spokesperson said here.

The black box was sent by an early morning flight today to Lockheed Martin, he said.

The delay in decoding the black box data would also mean a delay in determining the cause of the crash, he said.

The IAF had stated on Friday that it would come out with a preliminary report on the reasons behind the mishap in 24 hours.

The IAF spokesperson also denied reports suggesting that the C-130J fleet has been grounded after the crash, saying the aircraft did not fly yesterday as the personnel of the squadron were busy in the last rites of the five victims of the crash.

The Super Hercules Special Operations transport aircraft crashed near Gwalior killing five crew members on Friday last after taking off from Agra.

The aircraft had apparently hit a hillock before crashing on the rocky surface on the banks of Chambal river near Gwalior.

India had recently inducted six C-130J Super Hercules aircraft, which were bought from the US at a cost of around Rs 5,780 crore (USD 962 million) four years ago.

The home base of the 77 squadron 'Veiled Vipers' operating the aircraft is Hindon in Ghaziabad near here.

The aircraft were recently landed on the Daulat Beg Oldie air field near the China border and have helped in boosting the IAF's capability to airlift troops closer to the border in times of emergency.

On the demands of the IAF, the Defence Ministry recently placed orders for six more such aircraft from the US.

The loss of such a big asset is considered a setback for the IAF.

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News Network
April 3,2020

New Delhi, Apr 3: The total number of coronavirus cases in Delhi has risen to 384, including 259 who were evacuated from Nizamuddin Markaz, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said on Friday.

In last 24 hours, 91 new cases were reported in the national capital and one more person evacuated from the Markaz died due to coronavirus, taking the total number of deaths in the city to five, he said.

Of the 384 cases, 58 had recent foreign travel history and 38 contracted the virus after coming in contact with them, he added.

Kejriwal said community spread of the virus is not taking place in Delhi yet and there is no need to panic as the situation is under control.

The government has made preparations if the virus starts spreading among people, he said.

The chief minister also launched a WhatsApp helpline - 8800007722 for people to enquire about COVID-19, food banks, shelters among others.

Meanwhile, Kejriwal, deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia and experts will interact with students and answer their queries related to the virus at 3 pm on Saturday.

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Agencies
May 17,2020

New Delhi, May 17: With the highest-ever spike of close to 5,000 cases in the past 24 hours, the COVID-19 count in India has crossed 90,000 on Sunday.

With an increase of 4,987 COVID-19 cases being reported in the last 24 hours, the count has reached 90,927, according to the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

The total number of active cases in the country stands at 53,946 today, while 2,872 deaths have been recorded due to the infection so far, with one patient having migrated. 120 deaths were reported in the last 24 hours.

However, on the positive side, close to 4,000 patients have also been cured and discharged in the past 24 hours, taking the tally of cured patients to 34,108.

With 30,706 confirmed cases, Maharashtra remains the worst-affected by the infection in the country.

It is followed by Gujarat and Tamil Nadu, with 10,988 and 10,585 cases, respectively.
The national capital, with 9,333 cases, is also one of the regions which is badly affected by the infection.

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Agencies
May 28,2020

Several India-based firms are spoofing the World Health Organisation (WHO) by creating fake Gmail accounts and luring business leaders in disguise of informing them of latest COVID-19 announcements and hack their personal and financial information, Google has warned.

These "hack-for-hire" firms, many based in India, have been creating Gmail accounts spoofing the WHO, largely targeting business leaders in financial services, consulting, and healthcare corporations within numerous countries including, the US, Slovenia, Canada, India, Bahrain, Cyprus, and the UK.

"The lures themselves encourage individuals to sign up for direct notifications from the WHO to stay informed of COVID-19 related announcements, and link to attacker-hosted websites that bear a strong resemblance to the official WHO website," security researchers from Google's Threat Analysis Group said on Wednesday.

The sites typically feature fake login pages that prompt potential victims to give up their Google account credentials, and occasionally encourage individuals to give up other personal information, such as their phone numbers.

On any given day, Google's Threat Analysis Group (TAG) said it is tracking more than 270 targeted or government-backed attacker groups from more than 50 countries.

Last month, it sent 1,755 warnings to users whose accounts were targets of government-backed attackers.

"Our team of analysts and security experts is focused on identifying and stopping issues like phishing campaigns, zero-day vulnerabilities and hacking against Google, our products and our users," said the tech giant.

Google continues to see attacks from groups like Charming Kitten on medical and healthcare professionals, including WHO employees.

"We're seeing a resurgence in COVID-related hacking and phishing attempts from numerous commercial and government-backed attackers," said the company.

Government-backed or state-sponsored groups have different goals in carrying out their attacks: Some are looking to collect intelligence or steal intellectual property; others are targeting dissidents or activists, or attempting to engage in coordinated influence operations and disinformation campaigns.

Google said that since March, it has removed more than 1,000 YouTube channels that were part of a large campaign and behaving in a coordinated manner.

"These channels were mostly uploading spammy, non-political content, but a small subset posted primarily Chinese-language political content similar to the findings of a recent Graphika report," said the company.

Several cybersecurity firms have seen a spike in COVID-19 related scams and hacking attempts. Hackers are also creating scam sites similar to COVID-19 relief packages.

Researchers at Check Point Software Technologies revealed in mid-May that they have seen 192,000 coronavirus-related cyber-attacks per week over the past three weeks, a 30 % increase compared to previous weeks.

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