Today, with cyberspace is becoming an easy medium for disturbance by hackers— both individual and State– sponsored, as well as terrorist organisations whose main aim is to sabotage and disrupt facilities. High protection of such infrastructures is on the top of the agenda of the countries.
As a concept, Critical Infrastructure Protection or CIP was projected first in the US in 1996 by the then President Bill Clinton, as a result of a high level commission report. The Report proved the susceptibility and necessity of taking a closer look at protection provided to high priority infrastructures. Former US President George W. Bush had set up a special board after 9/11 attack, when he realized the urgency of the situation with New York practically paralysed and vital systems sabotaged.
Most of the developed and developing nations all over the world have woken up to the situation now and several countries like Canada, Sweden, Germany, Norway, Holland and Switzerland are falling in line with the US initiatives. These are under a specially created wing under defence and intelligence ministries or a special task force has been created for this very purpose. Some of these countries have multilateral agreements with other countries for sharing the resources. Although there is no global forum to tackle such issues, our country has an exclusive agreement with the US to fight the menace of CIP and counter Cyber Terrorism. But the European Union countries have a common federation.
Affect on India
India had earlier faced the problem with Pakistan backed defence hackers jamming our troop movement communication system giving false commands and creating a situation of uncertainty.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), in a recently held conference, highlighted the threat posed to India by cyber crime, cyber attacks and cyber terrorism. These constitute unlawful attacks on computers, networks and on information stored in them. Criminals indulging in such activities do so to intimidate the Government and its people, and to undermine the society. These crimes can result in violence against individuals, infringement of another person’s property, and could cause serious economic losses to the nation. In particular, cyber terrorism has emerged as a new threat which has the capability of paralysing a country’s critical infrastructure.
Taking this as a small example, we need to set up an action plan on a war-footing. The National Security Council (NSC) is already in touch with several ministries like Home, Defence, Communication, Oil and Natural Gas, etc. to draw up plans. But our planning and implementation gap has always been unpardonably long. Instead of waiting for some incident to happen and regretting later, a strong independent body directly under the Prime Minister should be set up having implementation, intelligence and research functions. Cyberspace surveillance is absolutely on top priority and a para-military force allotted for training in computer security, information security and communication security. They should also be trained to provide security to agencies developing critical software application besides personnel security as foreign intelligence agencies like ISI of Pakistan have always been targeting such staff and development bodies. The vulnerability of cyber attacks and the cascading effect of critical interdependent infrastructures falling prey to this menace needs to be scrutinised. All such organisations need to coordinate their physical, satellite and cyber protection security to work in tandem and not separately.
Besides the professional and State–sponsored cyber terrorists, we have the amateur hackers and virus pranksters. They are basically sadists who enjoy disruption and destroying other systems. There is also the inquisitive one who is a mastermind. This category of hackers enjoys getting entry into the most protected systems to filch information out of a sheer need to prove himself and his superiority. One such hacker got access to the NASA Defence System of the US, one of the world’s most protected classified information. Once they get access, they may be enticed into selling these ‘top secret’ details.
As a concept, Critical Infrastructure Protection or CIP was projected first in the US in 1996 by the then President Bill Clinton, as a result of a high level commission report. The Report proved the susceptibility and necessity of taking a closer look at protection provided to high priority infrastructures. Former US President George W. Bush had set up a special board after 9/11 attack, when he realized the urgency of the situation with New York practically paralysed and vital systems sabotaged.
Most of the developed and developing nations all over the world have woken up to the situation now and several countries like Canada, Sweden, Germany, Norway, Holland and Switzerland are falling in line with the US initiatives. These are under a specially created wing under defence and intelligence ministries or a special task force has been created for this very purpose. Some of these countries have multilateral agreements with other countries for sharing the resources. Although there is no global forum to tackle such issues, our country has an exclusive agreement with the US to fight the menace of CIP and counter Cyber Terrorism. But the European Union countries have a common federation.
Affect on India
India had earlier faced the problem with Pakistan backed defence hackers jamming our troop movement communication system giving false commands and creating a situation of uncertainty.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), in a recently held conference, highlighted the threat posed to India by cyber crime, cyber attacks and cyber terrorism. These constitute unlawful attacks on computers, networks and on information stored in them. Criminals indulging in such activities do so to intimidate the Government and its people, and to undermine the society. These crimes can result in violence against individuals, infringement of another person’s property, and could cause serious economic losses to the nation. In particular, cyber terrorism has emerged as a new threat which has the capability of paralysing a country’s critical infrastructure.
Taking this as a small example, we need to set up an action plan on a war-footing. The National Security Council (NSC) is already in touch with several ministries like Home, Defence, Communication, Oil and Natural Gas, etc. to draw up plans. But our planning and implementation gap has always been unpardonably long. Instead of waiting for some incident to happen and regretting later, a strong independent body directly under the Prime Minister should be set up having implementation, intelligence and research functions. Cyberspace surveillance is absolutely on top priority and a para-military force allotted for training in computer security, information security and communication security. They should also be trained to provide security to agencies developing critical software application besides personnel security as foreign intelligence agencies like ISI of Pakistan have always been targeting such staff and development bodies. The vulnerability of cyber attacks and the cascading effect of critical interdependent infrastructures falling prey to this menace needs to be scrutinised. All such organisations need to coordinate their physical, satellite and cyber protection security to work in tandem and not separately.
Besides the professional and State–sponsored cyber terrorists, we have the amateur hackers and virus pranksters. They are basically sadists who enjoy disruption and destroying other systems. There is also the inquisitive one who is a mastermind. This category of hackers enjoys getting entry into the most protected systems to filch information out of a sheer need to prove himself and his superiority. One such hacker got access to the NASA Defence System of the US, one of the world’s most protected classified information. Once they get access, they may be enticed into selling these ‘top secret’ details.
Dismantling Vital Systems
There could be attacks by cyber terrorists on vital systems such as telecommunications, power distribution, transportation, financial services, essential public utility services, etc, and that the damage could range from a simple shutdown of a computer system to a complete paralysis of a significant portion of the country’s infrastructure in a specific region. It is, therefore, a good sign that the Government is taking note of cyber crimes.
In fact, terrorist organisations determined to inflict damage on India and its people are increasingly becoming technology savvy. This was amply demonstrated by the sophisticated equipment that the terrorists in Mumbai and, more recently, in Kupwara were using. While so far the country has not yet seen an attack which has crippled one of its vital public utilities, it could happen unless cyber security is further tightened. It is already worrying that security agencies have discovered that terrorists have been using technologies like Voice Over Internet Protocol to bypass the Government’s regulatory controls. Other forms of cyber crime that are also on the rise include identity theft, online theft and e-commerce frauds. This is essentially because of the increasing use of computers and information technology applications in our day-to-day lives. Though the Information Technology Act, 2000, was enacted to take care of cyber crime, it did not deal will all aspects of such crime, and did not anticipate changes in technology.
The Measures
However, the Government has recently amended this Act to add provisions that allow it to issue directives for the interception and monitoring of information through computers for any offence, and also provide for the interception of messages from other communication devices and for the blocking of websites in the interest of national security. This includes measures to tackle cyber crime while making cyber-terrorism an offence punishable with life imprisonment. The coming years will see an increase in e-commerce, and therefore, a proportional growth in cyber crimes. Thus, the Government must do more to check this menace.
The menace of cyber terrorism, by no means unfamiliar to the preceding generations, has assumed grave proportion in recent years. There can be no doubt that cyber terrorism is one the ugliest faces of the political dissent anywhere. However laudable the cause for which the terrorists may be fighting, their way of fighting is most treacherous and cowardly. The murder of innocent persons and the destruction of public property cannot be condoned for any reason whatsoever. Terrorism is a phenomenon which must be condemned universally and unequivocally.
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