India Towards Cyber Security

According to a report, India’s rank in the UN Global Cybersecurity Index (GCI) stands at 23. Though, its not that satisfactory, still better than many other countries. A research revealed, at least 1 cybercrime takes place every 10 minutes, this is distressing and consequently leads to an immediate response towards cyber security sectors in India.

Nowadays, cybercrime is a serious issue all over the world. Indian government has taken several measures for the same:

• Cybercrime Police Department has been established in every state. 

• CERT-In, Cyber Security Bharat, National Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Centre, Website Audit, Crisis Management Plan and Malware Protection are few of the many policies and initiatives taken by the government. 

• The focus of the proposed IT framework is on IT governance, IT policy, Information & Cyber Security, IT operations, IS Audit and IT services outsourcing.

• Sectors specially banking, insurance and government have involved cyber security experts in their functioning. 

However, after all such precautionary activities, India still has a long way to go towards being more aware about cyber security.

India has faced several cyber attacks over the years. But, the recent one during COVID pandemic, by China posed a great threat on the country’s personal details. It was one of the most terrible attempts conducted by China.

Over 40,300 cases were registered in 5 days. Most of these attacks are claimed to be originated from Chengdu area in China. Hackers attempted cyber attacks on India’s IT infrastructure and banking sectors. All these attacks started after the tensions rose between the two countries in the Ladakh region. Maharashtra Cyber, the state police’s cyber wing, collected information about all these attempts in India’s cyberspace. These offences aimed at causing issues like denial of service, hijacking of Internet protocol, transaction of money and phishing. According to a report, these hackers are suspected to have data of about 20 lakh email IDs of Indians.

The main motive behind such attempts is to gain confidential information by sending defaulted mails or text messages. Several mails were designed in such a way that they appeared to be relevant and related to free COVID-19 test by the governments.

However, before any severe losses, the issue was taken under control by the cyber security wing. Internet users were advised to be careful from such attacks and conduct cyber security audits of their IT systems. By the quick response of the officials towards cyber attack by China, led to the protection of the country’s confidential details. The measures taken by government were quite applicable.Even though the reaction was relevant, still India has to work more on its cyber security. 

• Cyber attacks nowadays are becoming more sophisticated, so technical advancements in the field of cyber security is the demand of time.

• Companies must be aware of the risks associated while managing the data stored in their systems.

• People need to be aware about the different types of cybercrime persisting all around.

• Employees of all the governmental and non-governmental organisations must be informed about IT security.

• Main targets are the youngsters, so its very important to encourage them to come forward and file a complaint after being victimized. 

• Awareness must be spread about, having a strong and unique password for all the different account, not revealing personal details on social medias, being very much conscious while withdrawal and transactions of money. 

• Youth need to be encouraged about pursuing career in cyber security sectors.

• Private corporations dealing with cyber crimes must be promoted and provided with all the opportunities to influence the internet users. 

Cyber security, therefore, possesses a great demand all over the world. With the technical advancements and digitization in today’s time, there is a high risk of cybercrimes. So, eventually all the necessary steps and measures are to be taken for the country’s virtual safety.