New Delhi: Indian internet users were flooded with the message of impending cyber attacks last month, warning them not to click on certain email links offering free Covid-19 test and other similar suspicious links on the internet. The advisory was issued by the central government on June 21, nearly a week after the violent face-off between Indian Army and Chinese PLA soldiers in the Galwan Valley in Ladakh region which resulted in the death of 20 Indian soldiers. It was feared that Chinese hackers might target Indian internet users due to increased tension between the countries. However, a top cyber security expert of the country says the incidents of cyber attacks have largely gone up due to use of unsecured devices while working from home and not due to heightened tension between the Asian giants.
“It is true that during the last couple of months, the number of cyber incidents has gone up. Some people say by 200%, this is the figure that is available in public, but the issue is whether it is due to heightened tension between the two countries or is it something else,” said Dr Gulshan Rai, former National Cyber Security Coordinator in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Office.
“I’ve been monitoring it and I have been sitting with the people in the CERT, the body that monitors all these attacks. These are the cases of fishing, wishing and use of ransom-ware, all of them have gone up,” said Dr Rai in response to a question by ETV Bharat.
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He, however, clarified that the number of cyber-attacks recorded a jump much before the news and videos of fistfights between Indian and Chinese soldiers in Ladakh region started to appear in early May.
“These cases have happened not merely because of heightened tensions, these cases have gone up from January, particularly from February end because of the culture of working from home,” he said in a webinar organised by Mumbai based Electronic Payment Systems firm EPS India.
“There is no evidence as of now that the attacks have gone up because of the tensions between the two countries,” Mr Rai clarified in response to a question by ETV Bharat.
Work From Home Making People Vulnerable to Cyber Fraud
Dr Gulshan Rai, who earlier headed the CERT-In (Indian Cyber Emergency Response Team), the nodal body under the ministry of electronics for dealing with cyber attacks in the country, says the problem aggravated due to requirement for working from home (WFH) due to Covid-19 lockdown measures.
According to the Worldometer (www.worldometers.info), the highly infectious virus has killed more than 19,700 people in India and over 5,37,000 people worldwide in less than four months after it was declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organization on March 11.
Some employers have asked their staff to work from home much before Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a complete nationwide lockdown on March 24 to slow down the community spread of the novel coronavirus in the country.
The lockdown disrupted the movement of people and goods in an unprecedented manner, bringing down the economic activity in the country to a grinding halt and forced people to work from home in those sectors where it was feasible.
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However, the option to work from home also led to a sharp increase in the incidents of a cyber attack.
“In work from home, you will realize that none of us has a secure router. Our all passwords are open whether we work from mobile or laptop,” said Dr Gulshan Rai.
“So the attacks have largely gone up because of the work from home because my applications in the office are not structured to work from home. All used to work from the office where IT perimeter security and confinement was there but today there is nothing,” Dr Rai noted.
He says people should follow the norms of social distancing and containerization in their internet behaviour as well.
It means that people should strictly follow the advisories issued by Indian authorities from time-to-time to thwart such attacks. They include choosing a strong password, not disclosing password and other security credentials to others, preventing unauthorized access to your home laptop to anyone outside the trusted circle, and above all do not click any suspicious link or email.
“We need to ensure that our systems are secure. We must follow the behaviour of social distancing and containerization in our IT behaviour also,” said Dr Gulshan Rai who was National Cyber Security Coordinator in the Prime Minister’s Office and coordinated between different stakeholders to prevent cyber attacks on the country’s cyber infrastructure and citizens.
He, however, admitted that some attacks may be attributed to heightened tensions between India and China.
“I am not completely ruling out the attacks due to these tensions. There are agencies that are monitoring such attacks. These agencies have prevented significant attacks from there,” he said.
The possibility of an imminent cyber attack or hacking attempts targeting Indian users were further aggravated following the Centre’s decision last week to ban 59 Chinese mobile applications including Tiktok, Helo, SHAREit and Cam Scanner among others.
“A lot of defensive and preventive steps have been taken. We are also charged up and the agencies are taking preventive steps,” Dr Rai said.
