Cyber security is a very crucial part of homeland security of India. Indian cyberspace and crucial governmental computer systems have been systematically breached from time to time.In April 2008, Indian intelligence agencies detected Chinese hackers breaking into the computer network of the Ministry of External Affairs. Similarly, for almost 3 months the e-mail communications from Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) got affected as the e-mail system was infected by a malware.
Despite the importance of this field, very little ahs been done in this regard in India, Firstly, the cyber law of India is extremely weak to tackle the growing cases of cyber crimes and cyber attacks. Secondly, there are no cyber security laws in India. However, the most glaring example of indifference towards cyber security in India is the absence of a cyber security policy of India.
According to Praveen Dalal, managing partner of Perry4Law and leading techno legal expert of India, India has to pay attention towards securing its Critical Infrastructures and Protected Systems. The present attitude of India in this regard is far from satisfactory, says Dalal.
It is clear that issues like cyber security, critical infrastructure protection, cyber warfare capabilities, anti terrorism and anti cyber terrorism measures, etc have still not got the attention of Indian government. Till these issues are raised at national level and adopted as the national policies, not much can be expected from Indian cyber security, opines Dalal.
India needs to formulate stringent cyber laws and effective cyber security legislations. The entire exercise must be undertaken after formulating effective and robust cyber security policy. The sooner it is done the better it would be for the national interest of India.
