DMPQ- Discuss the major cyber security challenges of India.

With varying income groups in India, not everyone can afford expensive phones. In the US, Apple has over 44% market share. However, in India the iPhones with their higher security norms are used by less than 1% of mobile users. The widening gap between the security offered by the high-end iPhone and lower cost mobiles make it almost impossible for legal and technical standards to be set for data protection by the regulators.

Critical infrastructure is owned by private sector, and the armed forces have their own firefighting agencies. However there is no national security architecture that unifies the efforts of all these agencies to be able to assess the nature of any threat and tackle them effectively.

Unlike countries or states, in cyberspace there are no boundaries, thus making the armed forces, digital assets of ONGC, banking functions, etc. vulnerable to cyber attacks from anywhere. This could result in security breaches at a national level, causing loss of money, property or lives. To respond to possible threats on the country’s most precious resources, there is a need for a technically equipped multi-agency organization that can base its decisions on policy inputs and a sound strategy.

As there is no National regulatory policy in place for cybersecurity there is a lack of awareness at both company level as well as individual level. Domestic netizens can protect and be protected from the cyber attacks only if there is a guided and supervised legal framework.