by Khalid Mustafa

MAY be the world is losing the way of peace and daily issues between various countries across the globe are making us live with the fear of being victims of war. Cyber warfare includes digital attacks through computer viruses and hacking by countries to cause damage and harm to each other’s security. With the advancement of digital age, it is very likely that along with conventional warfare, we will also be fighting wars with cyber weapons. Data is extremely important in today’s day and age; this is where the digital space is vital in undermining the security, safety and progress of nations by compromising their data and using it to their own advantage.

As countries keep weaponizing, it has become all the more dangerous to go ungoverned without rules and regulations regarding digital warfare. Due to our increased dependency on the digital, new warfare can include impeding day-to-day functions of a city by breaching their operation systems. Therefore, with the cyberwars in the scene, new impediments due to wars are very likely to be expected.

Data is not only important in national security concerns but is also very important in today’s market driven world. Any breach of data can compromise sensitive information of people which is then sold to advertisers for money.

Botnets Spear phishing and social engineering, too, are techniques deployed in order to get cyber criminals closer to the targeted systems.

India is one of the leading outsourcer of IT labour yet it I surprising that it has not placed adequate attention towards cyber security. However, nascent efforts in this direction have been on cards since July 2018. For instance, an upgraded Defence Cyber Agency is to control all issues of cyber security. Indian IT specialists have created a product that may be used to process massive amounts of information for the purposes of intelligence and counter-intelligence. Additionally, the brick foundation of Innefu Labs in 2010, which develops products related analytics and cyber security—works with large enterprises, defence agencies and law enforcement agencies in India. The start-up has even worked with the Indian army.

In the present scenario, the common citizen wants to live with peace and hope the government will come with all security measures in the cyber world to ensure the security to its networks, defence and citizens.

The Indian authorities are paying more and more attention to conducting defensive and offensive operations in cyberspace while striving to reduce the country’s dependence on tools developed aboard and giving preference to forward-looking India-made products.

At present, Pakistan, China, and the U.S. are India’s key adversaries in cyberspace.

Very recently, following the skirmishes in Ladakh, the Ministry of Information and Technology on September 2, 2020, banned PUBG and 118 other widely popular Chinese mobile applications. As per the statement by the ministry, a total of 118 mobile apps have been banned by the government as they are prejudicial to the integrity, sovereignty, public order, and defence of India.

Kashmir, due to its political situation, is at a huge risk. Our data and privacy is going to be increasingly vulnerable in the future and one can only hope that the political scenario favours peace and we avert the dangers of a cyberwar.