According to well-known ethical hacker Sunny Vaghela, cyber crime is the newest risk to India's security with those inimical to its interests hiring specialists to keep watch on companies and crucial networks.

Ahmedabad-based Vaghela, director of TechDefence Pvt. Ltd, a reputed cyber crime security consultant said, "There has been an increase of 200 percent in cyber crime cases in India in the last three years and that is an alarming trend."

"The new tactics are more towards data theft like espionage on some other companies, working for some foreign intelligence agencies sitting in India, SMS and mobile call forging," Vaghela added.

Mr. Vaghela was in Guwahati for a demonstration on cyber crime security standards at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT).

At 18, Vaghela detected loopholes including "Session Hijacking" & "Cross Site Scripting" in popular social networking internet site orkut. com.

At present, at the age of 23, he has figured out over 16 cases together with the Ahmedabad police's crime branch, drawing out the origin of a terror e-mail regarding the Ahmedabad serial blasts, and assisted Mumbai Police acquire information on Jamat-ud-Dawah post-26/11.

"Take the Ahmedabad serial explosions and the threat mail where a Yahoo engineer was involved. Big names and people are today indulging in cyber crimes with people from abroad outsourcing Indians spying on Indian networks," Vaghela said.

Vaghela stated that the biggest fret is that representatives of Indian investigating agencies are not capable enough to handle techno crimes.

He said the hacking of cell phone numbers and for making calls and sending SMS is another region of worry.

Vaghela also said that social networking sites are not at all secure and hackers use and mistreat fundamental information from such sites for indulging in crime.

"Social networking sites are not at all safe. People are revealing lots and hackers use and misuse such information from such sites," he said. (With Input from Agencies)