Well, it is no secret now that Cyber Warfare is at par with Land, Air, and Naval warfare. Well. USA started a Cyber Command headed by a general way back in 2009. UK had started increasing its budget Cyber War from 2010 and may other countries followed the same. (Thread) 1/9
India miscalculated the scale of confrontation in cyber warfare. In 2013, Edward Snowden publicized documents proving that US Secret Services waged war against many countries, not just foes but even allies, and India was one of them. India was amazed. 2/9
US said the NSA conducted cyber ops to know more about India’s commercial and strategic interests. This raised alarm for India and cybersecurity gained some momentum and not just remained a residually staffed affair aimed at collecting basic information. 3/9
This issue now is how prepared India was for cyber-attacks. India is still among the top three countries in the world in phishing and malware attacks just after the US and China. India’s share in mobile malware is 23.6% and there is a security breach every 10 mins. 4/9
India has now acknowledged the possible threats and is trying to build a response to that. Cyberwarfare doesn’t consider border/ existing treaties. So, India is now conducting offensive and defensive operations in cyberspace to get self-reliant in this sphere. 5/9
The three main threats to India here are Pakistan, China, and US. Pakistan, as is expected, has limited capabilities in this regard. They just end up hacking a few websites related to the government or other agencies or they try to honey trap our officials to recruit them. 6/9
China, on the other hand, has been conducting large scale cyber operations against India some of which even qualify as Cyberwar. They range from hacking networks, providing servers to rebel groups, China hasn’t shied away from using cyber tactics to create turmoil in India. 7/9
US has behaved differently, albeit confusingly, on multiple occasions. While they claim that India is their key partner in the India Ocean region, their secret services have continued large scale cyber operations on India to threaten our national security. 8/9
Russia till now hasn’t attacked India. That may be due to its vested interest in the Eurasian countries for trade relations. Given Russian history with Estonia, they cannot be trusted. If we need security, we need to sign cyberspace non-aggression pacts with all our allies. 9/9
