By Amit
Mukherjee
PBC-Post
Doctoral Research Fellowship 2015
National Security
Studies Center,University of Haifa, Israel
It is usually
said that the next war would be fought not on battle fields but in the electronic
space where bullets will be replaced by bits of data. The increasing cases of
cyber-attacks in India alone saw more than 28,481 Indian websites hacked
in 2013 -2014. A home ministry report listed that US, Europe, Brazil, Turkey,
China, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Algeria and the UAE were the nerve centres of
cyber-attacks in India. India drafted a new policy for Cyber Security called
National Cyber Security Policy 2013. It catered to 14 objectives that include
creation of a cyber-ecosystem in the country for protection of business and
physical assets through public private partnerships and collaborative
engagement. It is here that India can merge it‘s requisite defense
requirements against cyber-attacks by allowing Israeli and US integration of cyber
defense capabilities that are considered the best in the world.
According to a
report, personal information of nearly half of American adults, 110 million,
has been made public by hackers. Kaspersky Lab USA has revealed in yet another
report that over 1 billion USD and more had been stolen from banks in the past
year. Repeated attempts by both countries in trying to engage each other in a
cyber -security partnership as early as 2002, with creation of India US cyber
security forum, failed to gain much grounds on various issues. These issues
included past mistrust and the revelation of US surveillance during 2006
meeting. India has skilled technical manpower and US has the infrastructure
and money to partner any joint cyber defense collaborative program. Keeping
this in view the strategic dialogues in 2010 again re - started the discussion
on cyber defense partnership. That culminated in the formation of the Strategic
Cyber Policy Dialogue. This intended to form norms for responsible state
behavior, internet governance and cyber crime cooperation. In 2011 CERT-IN and
US–CERT made a deal for cooperation for countering cyber-attacks. Both these
organizations are leading organizations for countering any cyber-attacks. In
the recent visit of the US President to India a concerted effort was made to
emphasize the importance of collaboration on cyber security between both
nations. In a joint U.S.-India statement, both leaders expressed their
apprehension of the growing problem of cyber crime and vowed their allegiance
toward growing India US commitment to cooperation for battling cyber crime and
its ―serious risks to national and economic security from malicious
cyber-activity and agreed to cooperate on enhancing operational sharing of
cyber threat information, examining how international law applies in cyberspace
and working together to build agreement on norms of responsible state
behavior.
In September
8th 2013, a cyber-attack shut down the camera system of the Carmel Tunnels, a
passageway for motor transport in Haifa city. Such an attack prompted the
authorities to block the passageway of the tunnel for two days. The enormity of
the attacks showed that public infrastructure can be brought to a standstill
and worse can be attacked to create wide spread panic and even damage and
destruction. Though Israel is considered to be one of the best locations and
systems for cyber security in the world, the constant attacks by hackers makes
it a veritable partner to align India‘s security interests with. The Prime
Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu in his meeting with Indian Prime Minister
Narendra Modi, on the side lines of the United Nations meeting in 2014,
extended his invitation to collaborate in development of cyber-defense.
India can
provide the required manpower to create dedicated cyber security task force
that may operate with individual enterprises in the public private and government
sphere or they can be combined to form a united and organized body or
institution. With the cyber-attacks on DRDO in 2013, and Eastern Naval command
in 2012, it is in India‘s interest to align its technological prowess and
manpower towards developing a more robust cyber defense capability in
collaboration within the trilateral entity of India-Israel-US. With 1.25 lakh
cyber experts in China and around 91,000 in the USA, India needs to build its
Cyber security infrastructure as well as technological base. India‘s internet
penetration is set around at 31.2 Crores or 312 million, on date. It has the
fastest growth rate of 17.5% in 2014 among the top three internet user base
countries in the world alongside China and USA. Its present world share of
internet user is 8.33% is still third highest in terms of proportions in the
world. The e-commerce and online travel booking market is set to reach the
amount of 16 billion USD in 2015. Even though India is not a top e-commerce
and online travel booking market yet, it has the potential to grow
exponentially in less than a decade. The enormous population base and
subsequent internet services sector, it is imperative that India develops
mechanisms to counter the threats to protect its internet services and
infrastructure. Even though India‘s share of financial losses due to
cyber-crime is a relatively small amount Rs 34,110 annual compared to the
world statistics of 388 billion USD over all, it only goes to show how as
internet and business grows the need to secure our interests also would grow.
About The
Author:
Amit Mukherjee (E-3696-2016),
PBC-Post Doctoral Research Fellowship 2015. National Security Studies
Center,University of Haifa, Israel
This article is
an excerpt from a research article, titled "India-Israel-US Trilateral
Cooperation Security Perspective: Challenges and Scope" published at FPRC
New Delhi Journal.
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Paper - LINK