Cyber security in India is an area that is least explored Indian government. Despite many announcements, cyber security in India is still struggling to get even basic level attention of our government.We do not have any national ICT crisis management plan in India. As a result issues like cyber security policy, national security policy, ICT policy, etc are simply ignored in India.
Even India has no ready made policy or strategy that can help in securing the critical national infrastructure form cyber attacks. Indian cyberspace has become very vulnerable to various forms of cyber attacks.
Cyber security is not about expensive procurements of hardware or software but is a mental state. There is no dearth of open source hardware and software, thanks to the ever lasting spirit of open source enthusiastics world over. What India lacks is a political will to achieve good and robust cyber security.
Even on the front of cyber security research, training, education and skill development, India is lagging far behind. We have a single techno legal cyber security research, training and education centre in India (CSRTCI). Further, we also have a single techno legal cyber security training and educational centre in India managed by Perry4Law Techno Legal Base (PTLB).
CSRTCI and PTLB are also maintaining the exclusive techno legal cyber security repository of software in India. This repository possess the best open source tools for cyber security, penetration testing, vulnerability assessment, intrusion detection and prevention, cyber forensics, anti DDoS tools, etc.
So why India is showing this apathy towards cyber security? According to Praveen Dalal, CEO of CSRTCI and Leading Techno Legal Expert of India, till now Indian government has not thought it fit to consider Cyber Security as a part of National ICT Policy. Even we do not have an Effective and Robust Cyber Security Policy in India. Critical ICT Infrastructure Protection of India needs better handling and India must develop Cyber Warfare Capabilities on a war footing, opines Praveen Dalal.
India is not working hard in the direction of cyber security. All it is doing is talks and more talks. Cyber security cannot be achieved by talks and forming committees but it can only be achieved by actual implementation of the same at all levels. Prime Minister of India Dr. Manmohan Singh has shown his interest in this regard but only time would tell whether it is another talk or the foundation for cyber security in India.
