Japan can be our cyber ally

Japan has underscored the threats emanating from cyber attacks on information and communication networks in its latest annual defence white paper released in July 2012. The IT revolution has changed the manner in which information technology impacts upon infrastructure in daily life. Classification of cyber attacks include data falsification or theft of information via unauthorised access to information and communication networks, the functional impairment of information and communication networks through the simultaneous transmission of large quantities of data, and so on. More importantly, the white paper published from Tokyo notes that the heavy dependence of armed forces on information and communication networks makes them prone to cyber attacks that are regarded as an asymmetrical strategy "capable of mitigating the strengths of enemies by exploiting weak points in enemy armed forces".

 

With an aim to gather intelligence, large-scale intrusions have been carried out into the information and communication networks of many countries, with a purported aim of extracting sensitive information, specifically relating to foreign and defence planning and policies. The recent past has witnessed virulent cyber attacks being launched against many nations including India and Japan. Following a cyber offensive being launched on the Lower House of Japanese Parliament (Diet) in October 2011, allegedly spearheaded from China, Tokyo reportedly has undertaken substantive measures to counter the cyber attacks it has been subjected to in the recent past. The latest attack resulted in the loss of ID codes, passwords and sensitive documentation of 480 lawmakers of the Lower House. It has been reported that the Japanese Defence Ministry's Technical Research and Development Institute has delegated a three-year project, worth approximately 179-million yen ($2.27 mn), in January 2012 to technology maker Fujitsu Ltd to design a kind of software weapon program that could trace the source of a cyber attack and consequently neutralise it.

 

As far as India is concerned, its growing dependence on automated data processing and widely spread computer networks has put it at a grave risk against cyber offensives. The main objective for New Delhi should be to secure its cyberspace, lessen vulnerability to attacks, and minimise damage and recovery time from any attack. India's premier government agency responsible for the development of technology for use by the military, Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), has lately commenced a project on cyber security that aims to put in place an infallible computer operating system. DRDO has stressed upon the need for R&D specific to cyber security based on robust platforms which can be trusted and, more importantly, could monitor the flow of cyber-traffic and decipher means to encrypt and disrupt them. Nonetheless, India continues to suffer from critical technical inadequacies as it prepares to confront the cyber menace. These include the absence of a single-operating unit, which controls IT, given that there are too many nodal information security organisations/centres that tend to squander time, whereas the requirement is that of integration and operational units being made more centralised. More significantly, India lacks comprehensive laws pertaining specifically to privacy and data protection.

 

International cooperation and information-sharing is an important means by virtue of which nations confronting the ills of cyber attacks could mutually develop collaborative mechanisms to deal with them. In the given context, potential Indo-Japanese collaboration in jointly undertaking R&D and other corrective technologies to counter the mounting cyber threat could prove to be a landmark area of cooperation between New Delhi and Tokyo. In fact, joint exploration of initiatives to counter cyber offensives can become a mainstay of the landmark security agreement signed between Tokyo and New Delhi in October 2008. A coherent approach jointly undertaken by India and Japan to notch up their respective capacities of putting forth a formidable layer of security, insulating them from a cyber offensive, would further strengthen the bilateral relationship and improve capabilities to secure their respective cyberspace.

 

 

Courtesy: The Sunday Guardian, 09 September 2012