Monday, January 5, 2015

Cyber Security Issues For India In 2015

Cyberspace is becoming a complicated zone to handle and manage. Every country is trying its level best to adjust its affairs in cyberspace. However, cyber criminals and cyber attacks are much more ahead and advance than their prevention and remedies.

India is a late entrant in cyber security field as it never gave importance to cyber security related issues. In face, the research works titled cyber security developments 2013 (pdf) and 2014 of Perry4Law Organisation have shown many weaknesses in the cyber security infrastructure of India.

The matter does not end here. The cyber security trends in India in 2015 are also not very promising. The problem with Indian cyber security initiatives is that there is neither a legal framework nor any implementable policy for the cyber security. Even the national cyber security policy of India 2013 is suffering from numerous weaknesses.

According to the projections made by Centre of Excellence for Cyber Security Research and Development in India (CECSRDI), there are many complicated cyber security challenges that are waiting for India in the year 2015. Some of the areas of concern pointed out by CECSRDI are international legal aspects of cyber security, state sponsored cyber attacks, increasing use of malware, cyber espionage, cloud computing adoption in India, mobile security and mobile governance issues, critical infrastructure protection requirements in India, etc.

These issues must be analysed keeping in mind the technology driven projects like Digital India and Internet of Things (IoT) (pdf) that have been launched without any cyber crisis management plan of India and establishment of offensive and defensive cyber security capabilities.

The cyber security trends have also projected that malware like Stuxnet, Duqu, Flame, etc would be used more aggressively in the year 2015. These malware are not only stealth but they are also too sophisticated to be detected by India. Let us hope that Indian government would consider cyber security as a top priority area in the year 2015.