Why in News? The Chief of Defence Staff General Anil Chauhan released India’s first joint doctrine for cyberspace operations, acknowledging that cyberspace has emerged as a crucial and challenging domain in modern warfare.

What’s in Today’s Article?

• What is Cyber Warfare?
• Vulnerability of India to Cyber Attacks and its Cyber Security Challenges
• Cyber Security Measures Taken by the Indian Government
• India’s First Joint Doctrine for Cyberspace Operations

What is Cyber Warfare?

• Meaning:
  • Cyber warfare are actions taken in cyberspace (dynamic and virtual space that connects the different computer systems) by state or non-state actors that
    • Either constitute a serious threat to a nation’s security or
    • Are conducted in response to a perceived threat against a nation’s security.
  • Unlike territorial limits in the traditional domains of warfare (such as land, sea, and air), cyberspace is a global common and hence has shared sovereignty.
  • Hostile actions in cyberspace can impact the nation’s economy, cohesion, political decision making, and the ability to defend itself.
• Types of Cyber warfare:
  • Cyber terrorism: It can be considered the premeditated use of disruptive activities (against computers and/or networks), with the intention to cause harm or further social, ideological, religious, political or similar objectives.
  • Cyber fraud: Cyber attacks that are generally aimed at getting monetary or related gains for the perpetrators.
  • Cyber spying: Cyber attacks aimed at gaining information for the perpetrators.
  • Cyber stalking or bullying: Cyber attacks which are designed to frightened and intimidate individuals rather than business or Government. 

Vulnerability of India to Cyber Attacks and its Cyber Security Challenges:

• How vulnerable India is to cyberattacks?
  • The cyber security threats emanate from a wide variety of sources and manifest themselves in disruptive activities that target individuals, businesses, national infrastructure and Governments alike.
  • In 2023, India recorded 2,138 weekly cyberattacks per organization, a 15% increase from 2022.
  • This makes India the second most targeted nation in the Asia Pacific region, after Taiwan.
• Cyber security challenges:
  • Lack of adequate human resource, infrastructure, R&D and budgetary allocations to tackle the cyber threats.
  • Threat emerging from servers hosted outside India.
  • Challenge posed by imported electronics/IT products.
  • Upcoming technology viz. Cloud computing, Big data, Internet of Things(IoT), etc.
  • Balance between Cyber Security and Right to Privacy, etc.

Cyber Security Measures Taken by the Indian Government:

• The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In): It acts as the central agency for incident response, vulnerability handling, and security management in India's cyberspace.
• Cyber Surakshit Bharat: It was launched by the MeitY with National Electronic Governance Division (NeGD) to ensure more awareness about the latest cybercrimes and the cybersecurity challenges of India.
• Cyber Swachhta Kendra: It provides free tools for malware analysis and helps improve the security of systems and devices.
• National Cybersecurity Policy 2013: It provides a framework for creating a secure cyber ecosystem and aims to protect information and other critical infrastructure.
• NCIIPC: The National Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Centre (NCIIPC) was established for the protection of critical information infrastructure in the country.
• Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C): The Central Government has rolled out a scheme for establishment of I4C to handle issues related to cybercrime in the country in a comprehensive and coordinated manner.

India’s First Joint Doctrine for Cyberspace Operations:

• Background:
  • China has built major capabilities in the cyberwarfare domain, including cyberweapons to degrade or destroy an adversary's military assets and strategic networks.
  • India has been lagging far behind in this arena, with the government only approving the creation of only a small tri-service Defence Cyber Agency in 2019 instead of the full-fledged Cyber Command that the armed forces wanted.
• Formulation of a new joint doctrine for cyberspace operations:
  • The doctrine comes at a time when the Army is operationalising dedicated specialised units in each of its six operational or regional commands to handle the cyberspace domain.
  • The doctrine will guide tri-services in planning and conducting cyberspace operations in the current complex military operating environment.
  • It will give impetus to the ongoing process of integration being actively pursued by the Army, IAF and Navy.
• Significance of the doctrine: This doctrine –
  • Lays emphasis on understanding military aspects of cyberspace operations,
  • Provides conceptual guidance to commanders, staff and practitioners in the planning, and conduct of operations in cyberspace, and
  • Raise awareness of the Indian war fighters at all levels.