India Needs To Strengthen Its Cyber Security Capabilities

India is trying to implement the Digital India project to the best of its capabilities. The success of Digital India project would depend upon maximum connectivity with minimum cyber security risks. This is also a problem for India as India has a poor track record of cyber security.

For instance, the Telecom Commission has approved satellite based mobile services in India. Similarly, free wireless and Internet connectivity would also be made available to Indian people for convenience and better connectivity. However, this would raise wireless security and numerous cyber security challenges as well.

Although the National Cyber Security Policy of India 2013 (NCSP 2013) (PDF) was announced by Indian Government in 2013 yet its actual implementation is still missing. As a result fields like e-governance and e-commerce are still risky and may require cyber insurance in the near future. 

Cyber attacks have increased tremendously world over and India is also required to protect its cyber frontiers through techno legal measures.  At the same time efforts must be made by India to formulate effective cyber crimes prevention strategy and impart cyber crime investigation training to the law enforcement agencies of India.

Some specific areas against which India needs to strengthen its cyber security are cyber warfare, cyber terrorism, cyber espionage, critical infrastructure protection (PDF), international cyber security cooperation (PDF), etc. At the international level, there has been a trend to block free flow of cyber security technologies. Recently a proposal was mooted to include cyber security under the Wassenaar Arrangement that was strongly objected to be India. If accepted, export restrictions could have been placed upon cyber security technologies.

India needs to strengthen its cyber security capabilities that must include both offensive and defensive cyber security capabilities. A cyber warfare policy of India (PDF) must also be formulated urgently that must include cyber security skills development objective as well.