At the inaugural session of G-20 Conference on Crime and Security in the Age of NFTs, AI and the Metaverse in Gurugram Haryana on July 13, Union Home Minister and Minister of Cooperation, Amit Shah said that the possibilities of cyber threats have increased. As per Interpol’s ‘Global Trend Summary Report’ for the year 2022, cybercrime trends such as ransomware, phishing, online scams, online child sexual abuse and hacking are posing serious threats across the globe and there is a possibility that these cyber crimes will increase manifold in the future.
Presently 840 million Indians have an online presence, and by 2025 another 400 million Indians will enter the digital world, Shah said.
The technology has transcended all conventional geographical, political and economic boundaries and today the world has been turned into a big global digital village. While technology brings human beings, communities and countries closer, there are also some elements and global forces that use technology to cause economic and social harm to citizens and governments.
The situation calls for a strong defence mechanism to safeguard the digital data from the danger of being hacked, attacked and hijacked.
As per the government the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), India’s cybersecurity agency, coordinates incident response measures with affected organisations, service providers, respective sector regulators and law enforcement agencies, and notifies the affected organisations regarding cyber incidents, along with remedial actions to be taken.
CERT-In has introduced a set of guidelines for organisations to comply with when connected to the digital realm. This included the mandatory obligation to report cyber attack incidents within hours of identifying them, and designating a point person with domain knowledge to interact with CERT-In. India’s draft Digital Personal Protection Bill 2022 proposes a penalty of up to Rs 500 crore for data breaches.
CERT-In also issues alerts and advisories on an ongoing basis regarding the latest cyberthreats, vulnerabilities and countermeasures to protect computers and networks. CERT-In, the ministry says, has set up the National Cyber Coordination Centre to generate situational awareness regarding existing and potential cyber security threats. It operates an automated cyber-threat exchange platform for proactively collecting, analysing and sharing tailored alerts with organisations across sectors for proactive threat mitigation actions by them.
As has been rightly emphasized by the Home Minister, cyber security has become an essential aspect of global security that requires adequate attention on its economic and geo-political implications. It is essential to strengthen the capabilities of nations and international organizations to deal with new and emerging, traditional and non-traditional challenges.