With growing concern over data theft, rising cases of fraud, phishing and malware cases, strengthening nation’s cyber defense system is of paramount importance. The usage of social media channels; sharing enormous amount of data online has made the anti-social element only stronger and better equipped. How can India take firm steps in securing the cyber space and what is India’s readiness?
In conversation with Geospatial World, Commander Mukesh Saini, who is an Indian Navy Veteran, Former National Information Security Coordinator (PMO/GOI) and Chief Security Advisor, Microsoft talks about India’s readiness when it comes to cybersecurity and what needs to be done.
What is India’s readiness when it comes to cybersecurity?
If I put in the world order format, we stand at sixth or seventh out of 10, we are not bad, but we have a long way to go. The problem is that things are changing too fast and government’s pace of movement is not sufficient. For example, the cybersecurity strategy or policy was supposed to come three years back but it is still in the process.
However, Digital India law is coming, which will cover the cybersecurity. If this becomes the case, then I do not understand how a subject like Digital India will protect the enhancement of Information Technology (IT) on one hand and control it on the other.
IT security has many facets – auditing checks, balances, IT frauds and crime prevention, investigations, and forensics. Besides, there are many issues which does not fall under the domain of IT, which is why it needs a different law altogether or different policy and processes. Digital India is one big umbrella which cannot cover everything and that is an issue.
Another aspect of cybersecurity which has not been logged into, is its availability in Indian language. India is a diverse nation with multiple languages being spoken, hence it is necessary that we come up with a language policy on cybersecurity, which will secure the environment in cyberspace. Or else a large mass of the population will fall into the trap of cyber fraud unless they understand what they are signing up for and how they can get out of a trap.
All AI and ML tools are in English. If we don’t have a policy on language pushing in, then within the next 10 years, we will face the death of Indic languages. That’s important to understand because the whole world will shift to the cyberspace. And they will be forced to learn English or any other languages.
Recently, a lot of cybercrime issues have been surfacing in India. Apart from language barrier, what other issues account to this? Why India is struggling to battle this?
Newer technology such as Deep fakes are creating major problems and in India’s cyberspace area, cyber forensic is missing. Cyber forensic has to keep pace with all this. Otherwise if someone commits a cybercrime, we do not have sufficient resources to prove it in the court of law. You may have the best of analytic tool, but that is not enough to prove the case, however, forensic tool is.
The big question is do we have it? Are we working towards developing it? Technically speaking, there are Indian companies who are equipped to develop cyber forensic capability, which can be admissible at the court. But how much effort as a government are putting in is a big question there. And that’s where I think the government is not able to keep pace with the changing technology. The issue is India does not lack capabilities but the government’s ability to keep pace with it.
Where does geospatial technology come into play in all of this?
Traditional GIS application such as MapMyIndia and NavIC are present in our country, but we unable to push them like Google Maps. We have put the NavIC connected alarm system in all taxis, so that someone in a situation of distress can press that button, but how many are doing it or how many are aware of it? It is because the government is not able to pull the pace. That’s the problem.
Private companies are ready, but it cannot happen without the government intervention. Whereas if you look at the US, they have National Security Agency (NSA) in some form or the other, whether as IntelQ or other social media channels, they fund these organizations. Initially we had some momentum coming up on Koo (India’s version of micro blogging application), which did not receive any funding or support, and is almost dead now.
What according to you is building resistance from the government side of things?
A major problem is that things are changing pretty fast and the decision making process is very sluggish. Then we have another problem of “anti-corruption productive measures”. For example, if I take a product, they may like it, but they will still ask for at least three vendors for it. If the idea and the product is unique in itself how can one get three vendors? Then they will ask for quote.
But the whole IPR is gone in that quote, and once it is out there in public domain, multiple products will come out. My specs and the base on which I built this unique product is gone into open area now. The people will develop similar product in different manner, and they might have more money and power to do it. This results into small innovators and startups not being able to survive in such situations.
The government has to come up with a solution on how the innovation and multiple vendor situation can be resolved.
The government bodies should be able to internally access and determine if the product is unique, or at least create an agency who non-intrusively and without going to public can find out whether the product is unique or not.
The government is putting a lot of effort, but they’re not able to upkeep with the pace. This is another major issue.
There is a demand that every nation should have their own PNT. What are your thoughts on it?
PNT is a big issue. Today, the complete power sector is fully dependent on the GPS. We have our own NavIC system in India that integrates rather than taking it out. NavIC has got resilience because of the L5 and S2 band, which are not there in GPS.
But where is the push from the government? They can keep launching as many satellites in the space with all the capabilities in the world. But if the people, who are the end beneficiaries are not aware of its usage, it is a failed launch. Today, ISRO has put up a map of India, where you can go to any agriculture land and it will give you complete pattern of that land, along with information like: How much crop has been cut, How often the crop has been grown on this, how long has it been vacant, and which types of crop has been grown on it? It is an open source but how many people know about it?
The reason is that government doesn’t have private vendors to sell your products. Because marketing is not government’s job, why not let the private players take the lead there? For example, geospatial companies can do the marketing of the products that they have expertise in.
Tourism is heavily dependent on the geospatial services, which have to be secured. The country-wide accurate location is something that still needs to be deployed more precisely. If you remember when Google maps was launched, people used to over-rely on it and land up in middle of the jungle because of the wrong directions. However, it has improved a lot now but sparse and remote area mapping still requires some working.
Now we have to push the acceptance of GPS alternative in the mobile phone devices. We are number two mobile developers in the world, why cannot the Government of India say that anybody who develops a mobile phone in India has to have the NavIC built into it?
The Government needs to have a clear vision on how to implement the indigenous NavIC on ground. Talking about policies and strategies is good but when it comes to the life of common people and reaching out to them, that’s where the gaps are.
