The Nations Cyber Security Strategy and Status: India Among Top 10 Ranked (Article 2 of 17)

Cyber Security Index of a Nation is not about the size of the technology dependency of the State, but its Index is all about the Mind Set, Strategy and Roll-play of the Nation towards the Cyber Security Strategy. This factor is purely Human Oriented. The subsequent investment on Cyber Security is where the core protection of Cyber Safety lies. The Incidents that occurs and its response, the evaluated risk and its measures to handle/mitigate them is what reflects the Cyber Security Preparedness of the country. Effective mechanisms and institutional structures at the national level are necessary to deal with cyber risks and incidents reliably. 

Certain reports project for the year 2021, pitch the global losses due to cybercrime to as high as USD 6 trillion. In India alone the estimated loss due to Cyber Crime is to the tune of Indian Rupee 124 Crore, for the year 2019, and this has only seen an increase over the years. Many challenges today erode online trust and prevent the digital society from operating at its full potential.

The fraud and cyber crime in the financial sector in India have seen an exponential increase, and thereby is the major contributor to the overall losses. On 28 March 2022, in a report presented to Indian Parliament, it was mentioned that the extent of loss due to cyber crime, which is frauds related to ATM/Debit Card, Credit Card and Internet Banking, as reported by public and private banks; has increased to Rs 63.40 crore in FY20-21 from Rs 58.61 crore in FY19-20.

Coming back to ‘The Global Cybersecurity Index (GCI)’, it is a survey that measures Safety of the Cyber Space in each country. This was first launched in 2015 by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). The GCI measures the commitment of 193 ITU Member States and the State of Palestine to cybersecurity to help them identify areas of improvement and encourage countries to take action, through raising awareness on the state of cybersecurity worldwide.

For the Year 2020 the GCI has published in June 2021. India ranked 10 among the countries. There are a total of 182 countries that were evaluated and there are a total of 15 countries who have been ranked upto to 10.

Cybersecurity is continually evolving, behaviours and practices. Tackling all pillars of the GCI – legal, technical, organizational, capacity development and cooperative measures – will require connecting people to each other and building trust. The Pictorial representation and the marking of the measurement (based on questioner supplied to the member states) is as given below:

To move forward, countries need to address their strengths and weaknesses in cybersecurity and leverage their competitive advantages to promote general cybercapacity and health. Beyond working together within countries, countries may need to support other states less able to address cybersecurity challenges, such as least developed countries, small island developing states, and landlocked developing countries. The Global Cybersecurity Index can help countries begin this process. The Need of the Century, is a Cyber Secure and Cyber Safe World.