Pragmatic Solutions to Cyber Security Threat in Indian Context

Framing Of Effective Cyber Threat Management Policies

India is new to cyber security threats. Its networks are not conditioned to fight off threats which may originate on the network and target its users. Although the recent government led by Prime Minister Modi has shown remarkable interest in guarding Indian computer networks. However recent credit card/ debit card frauds show that there is an immediate need in Indian context to frame strict policies against cyber threats. They may be framed around the following crucial points (CIS, 2015):

• 1.

  Cyber Attack Analytics: Use the knowledge gained from actual attacks that have already taken place to build effective and pragmatic defenses. Here, care must be taken to study and review data from known compromised systems only. Indian Banks and Government departments currently do not have a routine system of cyber threat sharing, this is the reason why multiple networks fail because of same type of attacks originating from same source IP addresses.

• 2.

  Universal Metrics for Measurement of Security Measures: Standardization has to be implemented via cooperation among various cyber defense organizations within India and abroad for agreeing on common and effective metrics for measurement of security measures so that changes to the security controls can be made in a smooth and fast mannerism.

  • It also means that the people working in different levels of the security architecture must use the same names and procedures for implementation of the security measures. Any redundancy in these measures me lead to major losses during a cyber attack.

• 3.

  Prioritize Risks through Hierarchical Structure: This step requires building priority based architecture of all risks, putting the most dangerous of them at the top. The next step requires implementation of security controls that will solve the first layer, thereby proceeding to underlying layers thus strengthening the whole security architecture (Tomsitpro/guide.html, 2016).

• 4.

  Continuous Revaluation of Security Measures: The organization must carry out continuous measures to test and validate the effectiveness of current security mechanisms and metrics to help stay ahead of the trouble makers.

• 5.

  Automation of Defenses: All security measures must be automated and monitored round the clock so that organizations can get measureable, reliable and continuous feedback of the security measures involved.

Various Measures Of Cyber Defences

It is important for a bank, organization as well as country to build various measures via which cyber defenses may be implemented seamlessly. These may be implemented by following steps (Robert, 2015):