Cybersecurity in Top Pitch

Asoke K. Laha President & MD, Interra IT Recently, the Economist came out with the “Safe City Index” which ranks the top fifty safest cities. Over the years, the ranking criteria applied have changed dramatically. One of the critical parameters among the four benchmarks is cyber safety, followed by health security, infrastructure safety and personal safety. This is a testament to how cybersecurity plays a critical role in urban planning. There are a few who may disagree with the pecking order of the criteria and may question the importance assigned to cybersecurity in ranking safety. Perhaps, the other criteria such as health, personal, and infrastructure should have been given more weight. But those who are aware of the action video game “Watch Dogs”, released worldwide in May 2014, will vouch how important cybersecurity is to an increasingly digital world. “Watch Dogs” is a fictionalized account of a hacker and his efforts to seek revenge after the accidental death of his niece. The game explores the flip side of digital technology and how it can adversely affect the societal life, if someone wants to tamper and malign it. The hacker uses the city’s overarching digital network, which controls technology and information, including key data on residents as the weapon. The video game instructs how malicious programmers can bring about large-scale disruption of computer networks on which a city depends on. There are various types of cybercrimes, such as hacking, threats and black mailing, creating malware, espionage, fraud, identity theft, intellectual property thefts – the list goes on. As the digital economy grows, so does the number of cybercrimes. It knows no boundaries – a person sitting in the U.S. can hack into the digital systems in India, and vice versa. Transnational bank and credit card frauds are happening on a daily basis. Almost every aspect of human life where digitization is involved is susceptible to cyber-attacks. Various studies have been conducted from time to time to estimate the number of cyber-attacks and the losses on account of them. According to one estimate, nearly 200,000 viruses and other malicious codes circulate every day in the cyber space, affecting upwards of 200,000 computers in the government and corporate offices. The US-based Internet Crime Complaint Center, which has a close link to the FBI, puts that in the country’s losses on account of cybercrimes is in several billions. Also, corporations and government offices have to incur heavy expenditure to maintain, protect, and restore cyber infrastructure. In the U.K., the annual cost resulting from cybercrimes is estimated at US$43 billion – a major portion of that is the result of intellectual property (IP) thefts. In Germany, phishing activity is estimated to have increased 70 per cent since 2010, resulting in huge losses. Increasingly, such crimes have led to the emergence of another industry and that is of cyber protection gadgets and equipment. The exact turnover of this industry, experts opine, will be in several billions of dollars. Some of the heads under which the preventive expenditure can happen in anticipation of cybercrime are: beefing up security measures such as antiviral software installation costs of insurance and IT security maintenance. Though these expenditures can be treated as losses to the governments and corporations, it ends up in the revenue stream of other sets of industry specializing in prevention of cybercrimes. Now let us go back to the 2015 “Safe Standard Index”. In the ranking, Tokyo tops the list, followed by Singapore and Stockholm. Importantly, Tokyo has landed the top spot due to its high marks in cybersecurity. Among other cities in Asia-pacific, New Delhi and Mumbai were ranked fourth and third, respectively from the bottom. Why is this ranking important for India? We are embarking on building around a hundred smart cities in the next few years. What do we mean by smart cities? Does it mean cities, which boast of skyscrapers, modern facilities, leisure parks and excellent hotels? These attributes alone will not help us emerge as safe cities. They should ensure safety from all angles – this means more investment in equipment, collating intelligence and creating awareness among the public about cyber-attacks. There is an increasing awareness of cybercrimes in India. These types of crimes are being reported daily and the media is also giving prominence to such news to keep users aware of possible threats. The awareness, however, is still sketchy viewed against the great strides India is going to make in the digital sphere. The Digital India programme is embarking on connecting every nook and corner of the country with the mainstream. India has unveiled many programmes like financial inclusion, unique identification to each citizen (Aadhaar) and transfer of subsidies based on such data, clean India, and a host of other projects, which run on digital platforms like mobile texting, the Internet, etc. Our efforts to combat cybercrimes need to be ramped up. Imagine a situation when everything is digitized in India, be they government departments, civic bodies, courts, educational institutions, personnel data of everyone in the country with their profiles. There will be a centralized system for storing such data and someone hacks into that system. The entire country will come to a standstill. Even now, customers of banks face this problem, when the net is down. No transaction can take place for hours or days together till the time the net connectivity is restored. To take another example, how people feel helpless when the net connectivity is slow due to some technical errors. But there are some happy tidings. Civilizations prosper with the same pace at which they decline. But science is ever progressive. Every calamity or catastrophe marks the upswing of science. The safety report of the Economist analyzes how Japan, which is perpetually under the threat of earthquakes, has emerged as a safer country, with two of its cities – Tokyo and Osaka – figuring pretty high in the pecking order. Japan used science to ward off its threat perceptions. It has planned its cities, towns and villages to adhere to the earthquake resistance norms. All buildings have in-built systems to withstand earthquakes of higher magnitude. It has invested in creating awareness about the precautionary actions to be taken in the event of an earthquake as also devised plans to fast track rescue and rehabilitative works in the event of a natural calamity. India also has to think along similar lines to create capacities for ensuring safety to the people. We have to considerably tone up the safety measures at every front. To deal effectively with increasing cybercrimes, many states have constituted special information technology (SIT) cadre comprising recruits with engineering, science and technology degrees. This is on account of the massive jump in cybercrimes in recent years. In the past few years, through curriculum changes, cybercrime investigation and forensic have been included in training modules at the Police Academy and police training colleges. The CID also imparts special training to cops on the subject. Individuals should live with the realization that they can become susceptible to threats at any time and should make behavioural adjustments to grapple with it such as not sharing the internet password, bank details, etc. Corporations should build strong firewalls around them to protect their data and confidential records. Our preventive systems should be strong and foolproof and state-of-the-art gadgets, equipment and concepts should be deployed. The government should build a highly dedicated, cyber-educated and computer-savvy police force to deal with the cybercrimes. We have a tendency to wake up once the atrocities have happened. That reactive syndrome has to be shunned. A foolproof surveillance system should be put in place as a proactive measure to prevent cybercrimes. That way, we can have many cities in the Economist Safety Index, up in their rankings, in the years to come.