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CYBERSECURITY—AN APPRISAL
BY
Maj Gen PK Mallick, VSM
“Cyber threats are emerging as a major source of worry. Cyber
and information warfare could qualitatively change the concept
of a battlefield.”
-- Prime Minister's address to the Combined
Commanders' Conference on October 11, 2011 at
New Delhi.
Introduction
The Internet has revolutionized almost everything that we do today. Age old obstacles
to human interaction, like geography, language and limited information are falling and a
new wave of human creativity and potential is rising. Internet is driving globally one of
the most exciting social, cultural and political transformations in history. Never before in
history have so many people from so many places had so much power at their
fingertips. Many old institutions and hierarchies will have to adapt or risk becoming
obsolete. Spread of communication technologies will help reallocate the concentration
of power away from states and institutions and transfer it to individuals. A new level of
accountability driven by people will force present organizations to rethink their existing
operations, changing how they do things. With the spread of connectivity and mobile
phones citizens will have more power than at any other time in history. But it will come
with costs, particularly to both privacy and security.
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While the benefits of extensive use of the Internet are enormous, widespread
connectivity poses a dangerous risk to our nations critical infrastructures, our computer
systems and our networks. Individuals, organizations or even states can use the net for
nefarious activities.
Cyber threats pose serious challenges to the state. They blur traditional lines between
peace and war, government and private sector. There are significant legal, institutional,
technical and culture challenges in the cyber domain now. To overcome these obstacles
new ways of thinking, governance, involvement of new actors and higher level agility by
the government will be required.
Scale
In the first decade of 21
st
century the number of people connected to the internet
worldwide increased from 350 million to more than 2 billion. In the same period, the
number of mobile phone subscribers rose from 750 million to well over 6 billion. By 2025
the majority of world’s population in one generation, will have access to the world’s
information through a device that fits in the palm of his hand. Because of digital platform
driven scale effects, things will happen much more quickly with implications for every
part of the society including polities, economics, media, business and social norms. It is
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Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen, The New Digital Age, John Murray, 2013.
