After covering nuclear, biological and chemical warfare, international treaties may soon move to the another realm — cyberspace. A conflict in cyberspace can be extremely devastating, warn experts. India is amongst the countries that are particularly vulnerable amongst the major economies.
“A cyber war would be worse than a tsunami — a catastrophe,” International Telecommunication Union (ITU) secretary-general, Mr Hamadoun Toure, said, calling for an international treaty against cyber attacks.
“We are in a new world order. We are not saying that it is China versus the US or any other country. It could be a nation against another nation or a company against another company,” said Mr Toure, whose agency had suggested a plan to fight this menace.
A new report from McAfee — In the Crossfire: Critical Infrastructure in the Age of Cyber War — suggests that the use of cyber-attacks as a weapon by governments and political organisations is on the rise.
According to experts, China, the US, Russia, Israel and France are among 20 countries locked in a cyberspace arms race and gearing up for possible Internet hostilities.
The attack could probably look like fictitious attacks in cyber-thrillers, where enemies launch a cyber attack on nation’s critical infrastructure — utilities, communications, etc.
India is particularly more vulnerable among IT powers to cyber attacks. According to McAfee global threat intelligence data, India has recently replaced China (and Russia and Romania) as the richest hunting ground for hackers bent on recruiting infected computers for botnets.
Mr Toure said international cooperation is one of the key requirements of ensuring cyber security in the world and ITU is working towards it. “Being a member of the United Nations, we (ITU) are in a good position to help countries to ready an international treaty against cyber attacks.”
However, he hasten to add that they are only at the stage of having preliminary discussions about the treaty. “We are preparing ourselves for the international conference on cyber security, which is to be held in the later half of this year in New York. That’s where any decision on high-level discussions on this treaty will take place,” he adds.