India Call Centre Staff Bribed

Evening Standard ^ | 2/10/04 | Pete Warren

[Samizdat]

'India call centre staff bribed' Pete Warren, Evening Standard 10 February 2004

STAFF at call centres in India are being bribed by organised crime and industrial spies to them help hack into the computer systems of British firms.

In at least two recent cases, local IT staff working on the sub-continent for UK institutions were involved in what industry sources say were 'security issues' in what is described as the tiniest fraction of a far larger problem.

In one case, sensitive financial information and credit card details were apparently illegally taken from a leading British financial institution.

A spokesman for the National Outsourcing Association (NOA) in Britain said: 'This shows that there are some things that you really should not send overseas. For organised criminals, this is a godsend.

'If you are using people in a low wage area, organised crime can afford to pay a lifetime's wages for data.'

Richard Hollis, managing director of Orthus, an information security solutions company in London, claims the problem is growing because Indian staff have access to increasingly sensitive customer information.

He said: 'We're seeing a significant increase in security problems associated with this type of outsourcing. Given that the majority of hacking originates from within organisations, outsourcing administrative responsibilities to an engineer making around £4,000 annually is asking for problems.

'The engineers employed by these firms are extremely skilled technicians and since they already possess the passwords and unrestricted access to the networks they service, they have quickly become targets for organised crime and private investigative firms looking to buy their way into a network.'

The revelations came after Trade Secretary Patricia Hewitt chaired a meeting last Monday to discuss the growing trend for call centres and other outsourced tasks to be switched from Britain to India.

Several British firms including Aviva, BT, ebookers, HSBC and Tesco have unveiled plans to relocate, or already created call centres in India.

Academics and industry experts believe this exodus could represent just the tip of the iceberg as other service industries look set to follow.

Manchester Business School's Professor Peter Barrah, author of the International Handbook on Outsourcing, said: 'It's a trend that is limited only by your imagination. There are some services that have to be delivered here and now; for anything that is produced with, or uses, a computer there is the potential for offshore outsourcing.

'There are companies that have now outsourced their strategy, the development of their marketing campaigns and their new product development.'

The DTI is currently commissioning research that it hopes will give a clearer picture of the true trend of job migration.

In the UK, there are about 400,000 people involved in the call-centre industry in about 5,500 call centres.

[Southack]

Was it Bank of New York, by any chance?

[Mamzelle]

I should have read on before posting the previous question--is this an American bank? Holy cow--!

[kitkat]

***The bank is "re-evaluating" its use of Indian ousourcing.***

Thanks for the further information.

[international american]

"The bank is "re-evaluating" its use of Indian ousourcing."

I'll bet:)

[FormerACLUmember]

see post 17 for the bottom line.

[Heyworth]

'If you are using people in a low wage area, organised crime can afford to pay a lifetime's wages for data.'

Hey, they're just being entrepreneurial, like all those people whose jobs have been outsourced are being told to be.

[Mamzelle]

They oughta move really fast to reimburse, because this could hit the fan in a big way for them--it's politically hot, and also makes the bank look crooked.

[StolarStorm]

I strongly encourage that this be publicized. I'm sure that if news outlets were made aware of this example of "secure" banking, it would get a lot of play.

[FormerACLUmember]

Dad has $17,000 back already, the other $16,000 from the Indian out-sourcing theft is still pending.

[Mamzelle]

Not to mention getting a much quicker reimbursement!

Looks like outsourcing might not be such a bargain if you have many more incidents like this...shudder...

[Mamzelle]

I guess it's not wise to name names here, but do you mind saying if the bank is US-based?

[EagleMamaMT]

Read later.

[harpseal]

Ping

On or off - Lt me know

[HuntsvilleTxVeteran]

I have been saying this since they started out sourcing computer data and programming.

[philosofy123]

The best way for corporations is to export the jobs on the top, such as the position of President, and Vice Presidents. If that was the first action when companies need to cut cost, you would see very fast a better way to do things around corporate America. The same thing for our government, if the government gets into economic pinch, let us exports the jobs of President, Cabinet members, and all senators and congressmen. Indian dudes would work 24 X 7 for half the pay we give our congressmen. An Indian President for example, would travel coach and we would save the money we spend on Air Force One

The idea that a poor shmock engineer should not get pay $50k/year because an Indian engineer would do the job for $10k/year is ludicrous, why do we pay a Senator $150K if an Indian graduate from a political science college would take $10K/year to do the same job. The problem we have here is the bastards who are making decisions on our behalf are getting a bonus for saving the company moneys, and are not subjecting their own life or careers to any jeopardy

[lelio]

10 Points to whomever correctly identifies which group, temps or happy long-termers, is *more* easily bribed.

Careful where you're going with that -- a proponent of offshoring said that these sorts of charges are racially motivated. Granted he worked for a call center that's big in India.

Its just a fact of life: temp workers that aren't paid much can be easily swayed by large amounts of money. And it just so happens that a large amount of money in India is $1k whereas it would be $10k here. Plus who is going to know if you bought illegal info something 5k miles away? The bank sure isn't going to inform its people.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

But...outsourcing is a good thing, right?

[searchandrecovery]

Harpseal returns?

[stylin19a]

ping

[dwd1]

Let's see... We hand the keys to the kingdom to the lowest bidder that is out of the jurisdiction of our enforcement authorities and we have a few bad apples that take advantage with the knowledge they can take that money and disappear... I am shocked! SHOCKED, I SAY!!!!