Cyber Security - Government, Private Sector Synergy Is The Key

While India has policies and specialised teams to deal with cyber-security, it is undoubtedly the case that severe deficiencies continue to exist in the country’s cyber-security preparedness.

- Sanjay Badri-Maharaj

 India experienced a cyber attack of some kind once every ten minutes in 2017. These attacks are often aimed at carrying out cybercrimes against private sector companies, but an increasing number of attacks have been aimed at government entities and their databases. While no information as yet exists on the extent of cyber attacks against India’s critical infrastructure, there is the potential for much damage to be done against key civilian and military targets.

The Threat

In April 2018, the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre and the UK’s National Crime Agency produced its annual report on the nature and types of cyber attacks and cyber crimes most prevalent in the United Kingdom as reported by businesses. This report, while not necessarily directly transferrable to India, does give a very clear indication as to the nature and types of attacks that India faces and which might be faced in the future. These threats included:

Cryptojacking

Cryptojacking is when cryptocurrency miners are delivered through malware, using a computer’s processing power to illicitly mine cryptocurrency.

Supply chain compromises

CCybercriminalstarget commercial software, aiming to damage its reputation by compromising the end user.

Worms

The successful use of worms in the WannaCry attack in 2017 has encouraged criminal hackers to use them as an automated and faster way to spread malware.

IoT

With the number of Internet-connected devices increasing, more attackers will use the Internet of Things (IoT) to commit cyber crimes. Many Internetconnected devices do not contain basic cyber security provisions, making them unsecure and vulnerable to exploitation.

Cloud security