Cyber Security Challenges In India

Cyber security issues in India have added a new variety of challenges for India. Till now cyber security in India and its challenges and problems are well known and India has also realised that urgent attention in this direction is needed. For instance, the cyber security challenges for the smart grids in India were realised during the recent power outrage in India.

This is just the beginning of the cyber security journey of India. Critical infrastructure protection in India is not undertaken in the manner required. Even we have no critical ICT infrastructure protection policy of India  that can provide norms and best practices for critical infrastructure protection in India.

On top of it, stealth and sophisticated malware like Stuxnet, Flame, Shamoon and Duqu have already proved that critical infrastructures around the world like power grids, nuclear facilities, satellites, defense networks, governmental informatics infrastructures, etc are vulnerable to both known and unknown cyber attacks.

There are many concepts that were not even acknowledged by India a few years back. For instance, concepts like cyber warfare against India and its defenses, cyber terrorism against India and its defences and solutions, cyber security in India and its challenges and problems, cyber espionage against India and its challenges, solutions and defences, etc were never considered to be a threat by India.

Now it is well known that these concepts are not just theoretical concepts but actual and potential threats to any nation. India has also realised this bitter truth that also without much loss of crucial information and data.

Of course, strategic computers at Indian defence forces, governmental departments, etc were successfully breached and compromised. In many cases, India was not even aware of such compromise and there may be incidences where such compromise are still present and are undetected.

As on date we have neither a strong cyber law nor effective cyber security capabilities in India. Further, if we analyse the cyber security reflections the trend is really troublesome. The cyber law, cyber crimes and cyber security trends by Perry4Law and Perry4Law Techno Legal Base (PTLB) have shown the loopholes of Indian cyber security capabilities.

We at Perry4Law and PTLB strongly recommend that Indian government must stress really hard upon developing both defensive and offensive cyber security capabilities. The sooner it is done the better it would be for the national security of India in general and cyber security of India in particular.