Forces Prepare to Deal with Cyber Attacks on Key Infrastructure

NEW DELHI: Cyber weapons can be far deadlier than missiles, apart from being cloaked in anonymity to baffle an adversary. India may still be far away from establishing a desperately-needed military cyber command but is now taking some steps to prepare for battles in the virtual world, especially with China rapidly building its cyber warfare capabilities.

The Indian armed forces will conduct a major cyber exercise or ‘Cyberex’ this week, along with other stakeholders, which will include scenarios connected to cyber attacks on critical Indian infrastructure like strategic networks and power grids.

“The cyber attacks will be painted at the military and national levels… the aim will be to assess the situation, seek responses, damage control and requisite actions required for a synergised response. Cyberex is the first such major joint exercise of the Army, IAF and Navy, under the aegis of integrated defence staff, with participation from several other organisations,” a source said.

The others involved in the two-day exercise range from the National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS), National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO) and Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) to the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), National Informatics Centre (NIC) and Computer Security Resource Centre (CSRC).
Though Cyberex and other such endeavours are required to prepare for challenges in the fifth dimension of warfare after the first four “real” battlefields of land, air, sea and space, experts say much more needs to be done.
China, for instance, is steadily upgrading its cyber weapons to degrade or destroy an adversary’s military assets and strategic networks as well as energy, banking, transport and communication grids.
The malicious Stuxnet software worm, developed by the US and Israel, crippled Iran’s nuclear programme almost a decade ago. Even the Indian Army’s latest “land warfare doctrine” stresses cyberspace is the “new dimension of warfare”, which will be “a key battle-winning factor in future conflicts”.
However, India has lagged far behind in developing cyber warfare capabilities despite having a robust civilian information technology sector. It’s only now that a small tri-service Defence Cyber Agency (DCA), much like the ones for space and special operations, is coming up under a two-star general.
These agencies are truncated versions of the original proposal to have fully fledged commands under three-star generals (Lt-Generals/Air Marshals/Vice Admirals) to handle the critical domains of space, cyberspace and clandestine warfare, as was first reported by TOI.

The DCA, led by a naval officer, will basically involve an upgrade of the existing Defence Information Assurance and Research Agency, with some leeway to hire civilian experts from outside. It will undertake “defensive” cyber operations, with the “offensive” ones being left to other agencies under the national security adviser.

China, apart from hacker brigades, has a Strategic Support Force to oversee the People’s Liberation Army’s space, cyber and electronic warfare operations. The US has a huge Cyber Command, led by a four-star general, to launch a “full spectrum” war if required as well as protect over 15,000 American military networks from attacks round-the-clock.

Source: ToI

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