Centre planning strategies to tackle cyber attacks by 'Chinese hackers'

Faced with a series of cyber attacks — first on country’s financial capital Mumbai and then on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) — the Narendra Modi government is contemplating a new national strategy to strengthen the country’s cybersecurity.

To prevent such future attacks, which were allegedly masterminded by Chinese hackers, the government aims to coordinate responses between ministries of Home Affairs, Information Technology, Defense and the National Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Centre. “The plan will be presented before the cabinet committee on security, headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi,” former Lieutenant General Rajesh Pant, India’s National Cyber Security Coordinator, told Bloomberg.

There will be protocols in place to prevent such incidents in future and regular audits to secure the government’s digitally connected water, health and education systems – defined as critical infrastructure.

Also read: US firm alerts India about ‘active’ Chinese hackers in sea port system

Nuclear, power and aviation are being considered as supercritical infrastructure, said Pant.

A massive power outage in Mumbai last year is being linked to Chinese activities. Trains were stopped and darkness engulfed hospitals and the stock exchange across the financial capital for capitals in October, 2020. This could have been due to the activities of Chinese hackers amid a prolonged stand-off at the border, says a study.

Days after a US firm alerted India about the possible role of Chinese hackers in causing a power outage in Mumbai in 2020, another US cyber security firm ‘Recorded Future’ has flagged concerns about the ‘active’ status of at least one connection opened by Chinese state-sponsored hackers into the network system of an Indian sea port.

Pant refused to term the Mumbai power outage as a cyber attack at this point of time. “We want to know what happened. Breaches were likely malware and couldn’t be classified as attacks without a proper investigation,” he said.