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Cyber war: Blaming Pakistan is not enough

C. Raja Mohan Posted online: Mon Aug 20 2012, 11:35 hrs

New Delhi : Delhis assertion that hostile websites in Pakistan have triggered the recent rioting in Mumbai and provoked the flight of northeastern migrants from Bengaluru and other cities might indeed be based on fact. Blaming Pakistan, however, is not going to solve the enormous new challenges that confront Indias security planners in the cyber domain. Nor will requesting Islamabad to crackdown on the websites that deliberately spread disinformation against India will yield any real results. The civilian government led by Asif Ali Zardari has no control over the security agencies in Pakistan, which have honed their skills at anti-Indian propaganda for decades. Worse still, the civilian government in Islamabad is struggling hard to contain a vicious mood of religious extremism that is enveloping Pakistan. The latest attacks on the small Hindu minority in Pakistan are only one example. The Christian minority has been under siege for quite some time. The state authorities are under growing pressure to target the Ahmedi community, which have been declared as non-Muslim. The targeted killing of Muslim minorities in Pakistan has been dramatized last week, when militants stopped a bus in Kohistan, separated the 25 Shia passengers and executed them. Given that reality, blaming Pakistan and presenting itself as a victim will do India no good. For the latest disinformation campaign underlines the enormous possibilities that are now open to those who seeking to destabilize India. Given its extraordinary social and religious diversity, the massive spread of the mobile phones and the growing reach of the Internet, India is an inviting laboratory for any one wanting to test out cyber warfare techniques. Delhi must expect more such campaigns in the period ahead. India must address the emerging cybersecurity challenge at three different levels. The first is to expand the current operations to monitor hostile websites in the region and the world, their interconnections and the traffic to collaborators at home. Second, India cant depend upon the good will of its adversaries to shut down the websites that are conducting information war against India. Delhi needs to develop the capabilities to mount attacks on such websites and bring them down. Finally, conducting defensive operations alone is not enough to stop the hostile forces in the cyber domain. Delhi needs to conduct offensive cyber operations against the governments, official agencies and non-state actors that are targeting India. It is the capacity to inflict significant damage on the adversary that generates a measure of deterrence against cyber attacks. (The writer is a Distinguished Fellow at the Observer Research
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Foundation, Delhi.)

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