The reliance of consumers and businesses on the
cyberspace and interconnected networks would continue to increase.
Critical industries like electric, water, oil and natural gas,
transportation, automotive, and aerospace are increasingly dependent
upon industrial control systems like supervisory control and data
acquisition (SCADA).
In fact, SCADA has become the new
cyber attacks battlefield against India. An attack upon
SCADA is essentially an attack upon the critical infrastructure of a
nation. The SCADA systems may involve a human machine interface
(HMI), a supervisory system managing the processes, remote terminal
units (RTUs) interacting with the supervisory systems, programmable
logic controller (PLCs) usable as field devices, etc.
Initially, running on proprietary control these have
evolved with the availability of low-cost Internet Protocol (IP)
devices, thus increasing the possibility of cyber security
vulnerabilities and incidents. Therefore, critical
infrastructure protection in India must be an integral
part of national
cyber security policy of India.
The policy must address critical infrastructure
protection requirements of India. Further, besides energy, defense,
transportation and telecommunication, the financial sector which
includes banks and stock exchanges must be suitably protected in
India.
Cyber
security of banks in India is still not effective.
Further, cyber
security due diligence for banks in India is still missing
despite some stern guidelines by Reserve Bank of India (RBI). Indian
Banks are not complying with RBI’s cyber due diligence
requirements. Even the RBI
warned Indian banks for inadequate cyber security in the
past.
This is a serious issue as more than 80% of banking
transactions today takes place online. Similarly, the majority of the
investor trade through online systems thus making the financial
sector one of the most critical sectors.
Mobile
banking cyber security in India is still missing. In these
circumstances, mobile banking in India has become really risky as it
puts the customers at grave risks. Mobile
banking cyber security is required in India on a priority
basis before any mobile banking scheme is launched in India. Although
Internet
banking guidelines in India by RBI have been issued yet no
such guidelines have been issued by RBI regarding mobile banking so
far.
These cyber
security issues in India must be resolved as soon as
possible as the cyber
security challenges of India remains unredressed till
date.