rkjindal91
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While the world braces for e-threats,
India moves slow
Feb 6, 2012, 01.04AM IST TNN [ Rajat Pandit ]
MUNICH: After the first four "real'' battlefields of land, air, sea and now
increasingly space, India needs to get very serious about the virtual front as well. The country should begin planning a full - fledged military cyber command, instead of the current piecemeal and
disjointed steps to bolster cyber security, grappling as it already is with incessant online espionage and other
attacks from China, Pakistan and others.
This was the clear takeaway from the
deliberations on cyber-security and cyber - warfare in the high-profile Munich Security Conference on Sunday, even though India hardly figured in the
discussions. Experts said the emergence of "cyber-weapons'' like the Stuxnet software 'worm' that was used to sabotage Iran's nuclear programme over a year ago, had changed the entire security ballgame, almost on par with the use of nuclear bombs for the first time in 1945. "Someone used a cyber-weapon in peacetime to physically destroy what the nation (Iran) would describe as its critical infrastructure. It was a new class of weapon that caused a thousand centrifuges in Iran to self-destruct,'' said General (retd) Michael V Hayden, former director of the American CIA and National Security Agency.
Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt
expressed fear that the risk of terrorists
or others getting hold of cyber-weapons
was possibly much higher than nuclear
weapons. "Stealing and using Stuxnet
might be more easy and dangerous than nuclear weapons,'' he said. Russian cyber expert Eugene Kaspersky, in turn, warned developed countries would be the "main victims'' of cyber-warfare
since they were the most interconnected in terms of information technology. Well-executed cyber attacks, after all, can cripple a nation's military assets and strategic networks, energy grids and banking, communication and
"infostructure''. Moreover, unlike missiles or nuclear bombs, which can be traced back to an adversary for retaliatory strikes, here the enemy remains largely unknown.
Stuxnet is a case in point. Though a few
fingers were pointed at Israel, as also the US, the exact origin of the 'worm' still remains unknown. But it's clear it was the handiwork of a resource-rich state agency, not some non-state hackers or fringe elements. So, it's no wonder several countries like the US and the UK have set up cyber military forces to thwart deadly attacks that can come from anywhere, at any time.
The US, for instance, has created a
Cyber Command, under a four-star general, tasked with launching a "full
spectrum'' war in the boundary-less
cyberspace, when directed to do so, apart from protecting the around 15,000
American military networks from attacks
round-the-clock.
India has reason to worry. China watchers in the Indian security establishment say Beijing already has two to three "hacker brigades'' and 30,000 computer professionals in its militia. China, in fact, has made cyber-warfare one of its topmost military priorities, with its hackers regularly breaking into sensitive computer networks of countries like the US, the UK, Germany and India. China-based online espionage gangs have been regularly accessing classified documents from several Indian security and diplomatic establishments, as was
also brought out in the "Shadows in the
Cloud'' report by a group of Canadian and American cyber-security researchers a couple of years ago. India, therefore, has to be on the guard in the virtual world as well.
India moves slow
Feb 6, 2012, 01.04AM IST TNN [ Rajat Pandit ]
MUNICH: After the first four "real'' battlefields of land, air, sea and now
increasingly space, India needs to get very serious about the virtual front as well. The country should begin planning a full - fledged military cyber command, instead of the current piecemeal and
disjointed steps to bolster cyber security, grappling as it already is with incessant online espionage and other
attacks from China, Pakistan and others.
This was the clear takeaway from the
deliberations on cyber-security and cyber - warfare in the high-profile Munich Security Conference on Sunday, even though India hardly figured in the
discussions. Experts said the emergence of "cyber-weapons'' like the Stuxnet software 'worm' that was used to sabotage Iran's nuclear programme over a year ago, had changed the entire security ballgame, almost on par with the use of nuclear bombs for the first time in 1945. "Someone used a cyber-weapon in peacetime to physically destroy what the nation (Iran) would describe as its critical infrastructure. It was a new class of weapon that caused a thousand centrifuges in Iran to self-destruct,'' said General (retd) Michael V Hayden, former director of the American CIA and National Security Agency.
Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt
expressed fear that the risk of terrorists
or others getting hold of cyber-weapons
was possibly much higher than nuclear
weapons. "Stealing and using Stuxnet
might be more easy and dangerous than nuclear weapons,'' he said. Russian cyber expert Eugene Kaspersky, in turn, warned developed countries would be the "main victims'' of cyber-warfare
since they were the most interconnected in terms of information technology. Well-executed cyber attacks, after all, can cripple a nation's military assets and strategic networks, energy grids and banking, communication and
"infostructure''. Moreover, unlike missiles or nuclear bombs, which can be traced back to an adversary for retaliatory strikes, here the enemy remains largely unknown.
Stuxnet is a case in point. Though a few
fingers were pointed at Israel, as also the US, the exact origin of the 'worm' still remains unknown. But it's clear it was the handiwork of a resource-rich state agency, not some non-state hackers or fringe elements. So, it's no wonder several countries like the US and the UK have set up cyber military forces to thwart deadly attacks that can come from anywhere, at any time.
The US, for instance, has created a
Cyber Command, under a four-star general, tasked with launching a "full
spectrum'' war in the boundary-less
cyberspace, when directed to do so, apart from protecting the around 15,000
American military networks from attacks
round-the-clock.
India has reason to worry. China watchers in the Indian security establishment say Beijing already has two to three "hacker brigades'' and 30,000 computer professionals in its militia. China, in fact, has made cyber-warfare one of its topmost military priorities, with its hackers regularly breaking into sensitive computer networks of countries like the US, the UK, Germany and India. China-based online espionage gangs have been regularly accessing classified documents from several Indian security and diplomatic establishments, as was
also brought out in the "Shadows in the
Cloud'' report by a group of Canadian and American cyber-security researchers a couple of years ago. India, therefore, has to be on the guard in the virtual world as well.
We gonna kick some A$$
But did expected you to know that anything is better than stealing. lol
