Cyber-threat from China looming large: CDS Bipin Rawat

China is quickly moving pawns to become the world’s superpower. Clearly, India has not been proactive in protecting the public and state-run organizations from cyber-attacks based out of Russia, Pakistan, China and Korea. There is an urgent need to further strengthen the Digital India program and have a strong take on cyber attacks.

New Delhi: General Bipin Rawat, the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) recently announced that China-based cyberattacks would be countered using strategic measures, building firewalls and setting up a recovery system.

He had said that India is lagging behind in terms of cyber safety despite looking at an aggressive counter to any attacks. He said that China’s cyber capabilities are common knowledge and that any cyber warfare would be a huge threat to India. He added that India was muscling up its cybersecurity. To this extent, the Defence Cyber Agency (DCA), a tri-service command of the Indian Armed Forces has been tasked with handling cybersecurity.

When there is a conflict atmosphere between two countries, a chain of events has taken place. While few of the incidents are obvious to the outside world, few come to light very late. In the wake of last year’s border conflicts, China has been quietly launching a series of attacks on India’s infrastructure sector. The recent spate of attacks, one after another, came as a shock to intelligence units. If proven guilty of cyber attacks, a country’s reputation would be at stake in the international arena. This is why no nation indulges in strategic cyber warfare. But China’s attacks are carried out by hacking groups such as Red Echo, APT41/Barium, Tonto Team, Stone Panda and Emissary Panda. There is no doubt that these groups are backed by the Chinese government.

Attacks aimed at infrastructure

Electricity and transport play a key role for any country. Technology plays a key role in these sectors. Load dispatch centres are vital in distributing the generated power without hassles. Red Echo, the Chinese threat group, hacked into the server and infected it with malware called ShadowPad. The relevant Union Ministry clarified that the attack was recognized in time and precautions had been taken, putting no crucial information in danger. However, the attack raised suspicions about our security systems. Evidently, none of the top state-run banking, insurance, medical, education, transport and electricity organizations has a proper security assessment in place. The flaws in software and firewalls used for day-to-day operations are making life easier for hackers. All they need to know is a server’s IP address with which they launch strategic web compromises. It was reported in March that Red Echo infiltrated an Indian port network also.

The Indian government banned 118 Chinese apps for engaging in activities prejudicial to the country’s integrity. Before the situation got exacerbated, China launched a series of cyber strikes. Zhenhua Data Information Technology, a data scraping company based out of Shenzhen, China; has prepared the database of thousands of prominent Indian politicians, journalists, judges, scientists, academicians and sportsmen. In addition to distributing malware through hardware products, China is making a concentrated effort to trouble India with apps and data mining.

At a time when the world is grappling with COVID-19, there have been massive cyber-attacks on healthcare and vaccine companies. Shockingly, all attacks are based out of China or Russia. In the case of India, Bharat Biotech and Serum Institute, leading vaccine manufacturers have been repeatedly attacked by a Chinese threat group Stone Panda. The hackers also targeted Andhra Pradesh Road Development Corporation, IRCTC, Tata Motors and Center for Railway Information Systems. The Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-in) detected the attack and alerted the organizations. Hackers have attempted to infiltrate the respective networks by phishing and spoofing the employees’ mails.

Time to revamp cybersecurity framework

China is quickly moving pawns to become the world’s superpower. Clearly, India has not been proactive in protecting the public and state-run organizations from cyber-attacks based out of Russia, Pakistan, China and Korea. There is an urgent need to further strengthen the Digital India program and have a strong take on cyber attacks. It is imperative to put aside a share of the budget for cybersecurity and related systems. Instead of limiting the training program of employees to technical knowledge, the government should focus on providing basic cybersecurity awareness. India should not solely concentrate on controlling China at the border but effectively confront its omnipresent cyber warfare.