Secure the network and all’s fine

But Indian cyber experts say that Chinese hackers are getting more sophisticated

Strategic analysts say the key to winning a digital war is network security. Much before the current wave of cyber attacks on global networks began, it was accepted in intelligence circles that communications networks could be the easiest targets.

One country clogging up computers of the adversary that handle war logistics, shutting down the civil utilities that are computer based, crushing computers at military headquarters, jamming radar sites and or interfering with hostile air traffic or simply downing commercial websites are all cyber attacks.

The Indian plan

India claims to have a very good strategy to counter cyber attacks. “We assume a strong attacker model, where end-hosts, network switching elements, and even entire service providers or network domains may be compromised and collude with each other,” a senior scientist closely working with the NTRO told DNA.

Simply put this means that India’s cyber command assumes that attackers could potentially corrupt any node in the network and be adaptive to new settings and countermeasures.

But scientists and intelligence officials handling key aspects of the Indian cyber command told DNA that the problem lies in accessing what kind of attack you might have to deal with.

“Cyber penetration or network penetration has a very wide range. There’s a simple Trojan horse attack where hackers send what appears to be a legitimate email.

When opened, it installs malicious software that allows hackers to open files in a private network or disrupt it,” a senior official said. “But some of the attacks attributed to China have been quite sophisticated.”