Indian Cyber Security And International Cooperation

It has been long felt that we need to strengthen the cyber security of India. As more and more cyber crimes are committed against India and severe cyber attacks launched against India this requirement has become even more demanding.

India needs to intensify its focus on cyber security issues at both national and international level and must promote more international cooperation regarding cyber security.

India must also develop and adopt existing best practices in cyber security area. Similarly, India must develop a more efficient cyber incident response mechanism to tackle cyber attacks.

Public private partnerships (PPP) on cyber security must be given more importance in India. Presently, PPP in India in the field of cyber security is in infancy stage. Similarly, there are very few international cooperations between India and foreign players regarding cyber security.

Perry4Law and Perry4Law Techno Legal Base (PTLB) suggest that to start with, we must urgently formulate a techno legal cyber security policy of India. The cyber security policy of India must cover issues like legal framework for cyber security, PPP model for cyber security, international cooperation for cyber security, cyber crisis management plan of India, human rights protection in cyberspace, etc.

Once the cyber security policy of India is at place, we must work in the direction of implementing the same in true letter and spirit. The growing incidences of cyber crimes, cyber attacks against India, cyber espionage against India, websites defacement and cracking, etc show that India has still not taken cyber security seriously.

While absolute cyber security is next to impossible to achieve yet a basic level cyber security audit of Indian government’s websites, computers and computer systems would show that they are vulnerable to cyber attacks.

Perry4Law and PTLB believe that we must at least start securing our websites, servers and government computers. Further, computers located at sensitive government departments and ministries must have a well defined cyber security policy and usage. We hope these suggestions of Perry4Law and PTLB would be useful for Indian government.

EU Sets Up Team Of Cyber Crimes Fighters

European Union has been taking cyber crimes very seriously. EU has recently proposed to enhance the minimum punishment for serious cyber crimes to five years and for non serious crimes to two years.

EU is also aware that besides a stringent law, it must also develop capabilities to fight cyber crimes. This is the reason why EU has set up a team of cyber crimes fighters to tackle growing cyber crimes in Europe.

Cyber attacks in Europe are increasing and recently 30 million euros' worth of carbon credits stolen by one such attack. The 10-strong team of IT security experts will guard against repeats of attacks on sensitive information, for example on the eurozone debt crisis, such as occurred on the eve of the last summit of national leaders in March.

Cyber-attacks are a very real and ever-increasing threat that can paralyse key infrastructure and cause huge long-term damage," said European Union digital agenda commissioner Neelie Kroes.

India on the other hand is soft upon cyber criminals. The information technology act 2000 of India, which is the sole cyber law of India, is not stringent and strong enough. After the information technology amendment act 2008, almost all the cyber crimes have been made bailable.

This has taken the sting and deterrent out of the cyber law of India. Some experts even have suggested repeal of the same and enactment of strong cyber law for India. Even on the front of policy India is not performing well. We have no cyber security policy in India and even the cyber crisis management policy of India is missing.

We urgently need to ensure strong and robust legal enablement of ICT systems in India. This enablement must include enablement of cyber law, cyber security, cyber forensics, etc. Like developed countries, India must also make its cyberspace safe and secure.

Canada Is The New Preferred Place For Cyber Criminals

Cyber criminals are in continuous search for safe heavens that allow them to indulge in cyber crime activities. These safe heavens are places having a weak cyber law like India or places well known for their cyber crime free image like Canada.

Digital Journal reports that cyber criminals are on the move again, and Canada is the preferred safe heaven for these cyber criminals. The internet protocol (IP) addresses of countries like China and Eastern Europe are highly scrutinised and undergoing intense evaluation. The crackers reacted to this evaluation exercise by moving their networks to countries like Canada that have cleaner cyber reputations.

Cyber criminals are taking advantage of many loopholes that make cyberspace a highly insecure place. While many countries have no cyber law at all, some countries like India have a weak and ineffective cyber law.

For instance, the information technology act, 2000 (IT Act 2000) is the sole cyber law of India. It has been amended by the information technology amendment act, 2008 (IT Act 2008) that made almost all the cyber crimes in India bailable. Obviously, now there is no deterrent for cyber criminals as they can commit many cyber crimes and go free even if they are caught. Thus, India is going to be one of the most famous safe heavens for cyber criminals.

Another reason for growing shifting of cyber criminals from one jurisdiction to another is lack of international harmonisation and cooperation in this regard. Till now we have no uniform and internationally acceptable cyber crime treaty. This makes the task of cyber criminals easier.

Canada has to take this shift of cyber criminals seriously. Cyber crimes have an adverse effect upon the socio economic conditions of any nation and this shift would bring its own losses to Canada in the long run. The sooner this nuisance is tackled by Canada the better it would be for it.