Digital India Needs a Strong Cyber Security System

India is fast moving to be a digital country with already many departments of the center and various states going online to ease the reach of their services to the common man. Even the Microsoft head Mr. Bill Gates in his recent visit to India predicts that India is going to be the most digitized nation in the world in the coming seven years.

Meanwhile India is on roads in queue of the banks due to demonetization of Rs. 500 and Rs. 1000 notes by the central government. Also Mr. Arun Jaitely, Finance Minister of India stated that the present government aims to make India cashless economy. Already the work for the digitization of the country is going on at the war level.

Anyone would give 10/10 for the thought process and aim of E-governance to make system more transparent and rapid. But there are few points which cannot be neglected while adapting the technology at the maximum possible level. Every technology comes with some loopholes which is taken advantage of by the criminals to fulfill their bad motives.

These criminals bypass the easy protection system and in turn lead to grave loss to all the stake holders. When we talk about the digitization at all levels and in every field the security issues come along with it. 

As per Juniper research it is expected that Cyber crime costs is going to cross $2.1 Trillion by 2019 due to rapid digitization of consumer’s lives and enterprise records. Also, the British Insurance Company Lloyd’s estimated that cyber attacks cost businesses an estimated amount of $400 Billion a year in 2015.

For a vast level implementation of any technology, its proper evaluation and study of pros and cons helps in identification of any problem that may arise in the future.

India is transforming with positive steps taken by the government into ease of doing business here. Not only business and governance India is fast adapting technology into its Education and Healthcare system. The days are not far when many of the world’s leading Technology based Businesses will originate from India.

India is world’s second most populated country with over 1.3 Billion people. Though percentage wise we have very low penetration of internet but due to our size we have very high number of people using internet and related services on daily basis which is even higher than some of the country’s population in the world. It is to be noted this number is rapidly going up.

Present central government has been trying to link every database including the bank accounts for better transparency and limiting black money. However with such huge accounts data, documents of various companies and data of government departments present online it forms an easy target for the hackers leading to greater losses to the people, enterprises and the government.  

One recent case that comes to mind is the 32 lakhs debit cards being compromised from the SBI, HDFC, ICICI and YES banks in India. After this SBI reissued 6 lakhs debit cards to its account holders.

Number of total cyber crime cases reported in India in 2015 alone stood at 11592 with 8045 cases registered under IT ACT, 3422 cases under IPC and 125 SLL offences. There is a hike of 5 times in the number of registered cyber crime cases from 2011 to 2015. These are the cases which have been reported but the important point is many more go unreported as most of the internet users either avoid reporting the breach of the social and email account or they are completely unaware about their responsibility in reporting these cases.

Symantec Corp. a software security firm published a report in 2016 ranking India at number 3 next to China and USA as a source of malicious activity.  

Even some cases of monetary misappropriation have come up with the present demonetization of 500 and 1000 rupees currencies in India, with some account being credited with crores of rupees overnight. Though banks are sealing these accounts still there are few cases in which money has been stolen from the bank accounts and not returned. Even the police are finding difficulty in properly registering the cases and carrying out the investigation.

Various cyber threats now loom over us which cannot be neglected. It is high time that along with the process of technology adaptation a parallel system should be developed covering the IT and Cyber Security. Three major steps that can be taken are:

1. Proper Law In Place- The first step in limiting any security breach or stop any crime to occur is to have right laws and a law enforcement system. In the absence of proper law and an enforcement system the high profile cheats can easily break into the system and steal the important data. They can also cause monetary loss. A well defined law system ensures no one can get away with the misdemeanor and to even think twice in committing any crime. India too needs to prepare its own set of laws to match the international level to handle its IT and Cyber related issues. At present India lacks a proper law in cyber related crimes which makes it difficult to press charges against the criminals and put them to justice.

2. Technology Development- Since technology development is a continuous process and chances of fault are always present. This fault may not be detected at the initial development phases and sometimes it’s not detected till the product comes out into the market. The best process is regular updating and advancements in to the technology fixing the bugs and any other issues. To protect huge data online it is critical to keep on improving the technology and eliminating the loopholes. Digital India needs to focus on regular updating of technology for its successful implementation.

3. International Collaboration in Cyber Crimes and Cyber Security- There are many advantages associated with internet shrinking the world and maximizing the reach of people. One can easily access any system right across the world without having to move from your place. Most of the cyber threats come from across the border which makes it even more difficult to bring the culprit under the law. This requires international level collaboration between the countries to protect their interest. Many times cyber hackers steal your money and transfer it to the account somewhere else in other country where it becomes difficult to even track and bring it back unless there is already a treaty signed between the countries concerned. To strengthen the IT and Cyber security system it is important to have international collaboration in this regard which protects you even if the first two lines of protection system fail or the hacker escapes them.