Digital India under Cyber Attack!!

India’s economy is aggressively progressing ahead to play a crucial role in propelling the global economy by quick implementation of policy programs, curbing the administrative lag, and more importantly inclusive development by being at the forefront oftechnology- led initiativesflag ship programs like Startup India, Digital India. These programs are aimed at fostering favorable business environment for existing and new businesses to become global unicorns.

In fact, India is rapidly transforming its entire policy and administrative architecture to become Digital India in accordance with the policy programs of the G20 of which India has become president recently. As a digital economy, India is positioning to become a global leader in data, technology, digitization, and inclusive to become digital economy. The more India is moving to reap the benefit of digitalization, the more its economy comprising all critical infrastructures, financial institutions is susceptible to cyber attacks that are being launched constantly by India’s adversaries lying inside and outside of India.

These cyber attacks on India are very serious and increasingly threatening. For instance, in the month of November, Central Depository Services Limited (CSDL) detected a malware in some of its internal machines. Very recently, AIIMS, one of the most important critical health infrastructures came under cyber attack. According to the media report on AIIMS, “ransomware had affected outpatient and inpatient digital hospital services, including smart lab, billing, report generation, appointment schedule”.

Cyfirm, a Singapore based intelligence firm, reportedly warned Indiaabout the cyber attacks that could be launched against its major pharmaceutical companies like Dr. Reddy’s Labs, Serum Institute, Bharat Biotech that are involved in manufacturing the COVID-19 vaccine to steal the critical information and data on vaccine research and trials. Cyfirm reportedly identified 15 hacking companies, seven from Russia, four from China, three from North Korea, and one from Iran.

Apart from healthcare industry, financial institutions that are the back bone of Indian…