By absorbing the need to effectively tackle the menace of cyberwarfare, and creating a specialised enclave within the country’s national security architecture to deal with a threat whose salience has risen in the past decade, India has shown awareness that the super-globalised world of cyberspace brings a problem to our doorstep unique to this century.
Wars of the future are unlikely to be fought only with tanks and missiles. National security adviser Shivshankar Menon brought the point home Monday as he offered ideas and mechanisms to deal with computer-generated viruses that can shut down a society’s financial systems, government portals or military defence, effectively crippling them. Indeed, the game has already begun. The United States and China now engage in wargames in cyberspace, while Britain has declared it is developing capability to launch cyberattacks against hostile states and terrorists. It demonstrated this when its virus replaced an online bomb-making manual with a recipe for a cupcake.
Only recently we saw how effectively Internet-based platforms like social networking sites fanned communal hatred and caused societal disharmony and violence in Mumbai, South India, Assam and UP. Our defence ministry and embassies have been hit by viruses thought to emanate from China and elsewhere. Two years ago Israel pressed into service the Stuxnet virus to infiltrate Iran’s nuclear programme. Cyberwar is for real.
In an electronic environment where hackers can gain control of communication systems and manipulate them into believing they are being run by the real owners, societies must secure all their systems, and particularly finance, energy, defence and nuclear infrastructures, and subject these to regular specialist audits and checks. This can’t be achieved without active public and private sector partnership as solid domain knowledge and experience vests mainly in the private sector in India. Political or ideological arguments of an earlier era advocating shutting out private entities from the defence sector now look out of place.
We also need to be conscious that India is about five lakh specialists short in maintaining an anti-cyberwar programme. This gap needs to be filled rapidly in the civilian area. The police and military need specialised and enhanced-level training to cope with the new reality. Their interface too will call for amending laws and inventing new practices.
At a time when all nations are seeking to spy on government, military, industrial and economic assets of other nations, India cannot but arm itself with the capability to fend off online warfare. All sectors will be rendered vulnerable if society itself becomes a battleground, and civilian-soldier differences evaporate. What if all ATMs faced simultaneous seizure or all the power systems collapsed because they won’t take computer commands?