Summary:
The Cyber Policy aims at securing Air Defence Systems, power infrastructure, nuclear plants, telecommunication systems among others.
With this policy in place India has made a very progressive step forward. We are now aligned with countries like Korea, US, Japan and several EU countries.
The real challenge is however in operationalizing the system.
Cyber cannot be fragmented like government system or private system because cyber is everywhere.
Essentially the policy talks about the devising mechanism which should be a central mechanism.
A national nodal agency will be set up with the following roles:
- The agency will try to incorporate the issues which are being addressed by many agencies as of now.
- The agency will try to bring the synergy into the system.
- The agency will ensure not only the government participation but also private participation in dealing with the issues related to cyber.
At present we have different organizations implementing their own Cyber security policies independently.
Lot of our computer systems actually go back to the 60s.The biggest danger that India might face is related the SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition system) controlled dams. And they are vulnerable to cyber terrorist attacks. This cyber security policy also aims at addressing the concerns of infrastructure sector.
This policy also facilities for the better level of information exchange as well as upgrading of technology.
Very few countries in the world have cyber security policy.
A policy is just a statement of intent. It is a directional intent. It lays down what we must do and where it should be headed.
Cyber security is not just important in terms of the Nation’s strategic safety but is equally important in securing the country’s GDP growth because the internet contributes 1.6% to the GDP.
Economic stability also depends on the cyber security.
The challenges that will be faced, while putting such policy in place, are
- Availability of enough resources.
- Enough and effective manpower.
- Obtaining international collaboration.
All these years the budget for cyber security was not exclusive one.
We have not built cyber defence optics yet.
The threat is to the telecom network as well.
Multilateral international governance is required for effective governance of the Internet.
