Cyber Security Threats in 2015 – The Indian Story

There is a lot of buzz about what is going to happen in cyberspace, especially in the year 2015. As far as technology goes, we are definitely hitting the cybersecurity clouds big time with newer credit card technologies, better encryption, new backends, and more secure systems. But when we talk about crime, although there are a lot more crime numbers in India, the Indian picture of cybercrime has seen only ups in the past decade and extreme rises in the past couple of years. An Assocham-Mahindra SSG study has recently predicted that cybercrime in India will hit the 3 lakh figure with more than a 107% increase rate as of now.

The E-Governance system in India is growing, and more online shopping portals for anything and everything are opening. We are digitizing ourselves very fast. But how ready are we for what is to come? The future is unpredictable.

And yet here we are with a major report marking the new year that gave a few head notes about what is expected in the cyber security domain in 2015. Here is our version of it.

1. International Privacy Concerns:

As a nation, we have started the ‘Make in India’ campaign. It is time we start a ‘set-up (Servers) in India’ campaign too. Any leading servers that Indians access are based out of Europe or USA. The NSA even has strict monitoring policies, yet India has no privacy law. The real fight about this is actually going on far west, while in India we expect an ever higher crime rate that also includes non-sophisticated crimes.

2. Extortion:

Extortion scams are expected to be on the rise. Those who haven’t heard about extortion must check out the Sony extortion case. This extortion was about a promise to shelve ‘The Interview'( a movie released online). At a rather smaller scale and what requires minimum skills, the crime was caused due to ransom-wares. As of yet, ransom wares haven’t reached India and if there is some time, it still leaves a possibility that ransom wares can hit India with spam SMS and other services like mobile money coming into the scene.

3. Data Destruction:

Data theft and corporate issues have been around for quite a while in India. Currently, data is the most priced possession of any company or government. And this loss is expected at higher stakes. The Sony hack also posed an example of the need that companies and organisations in India to look into such thefts. Furthermore, with the existence of malware that is capable to wipe off hard disks at once, organizations need a new backup scheme.

4. E-commerce and ATM Frauds:

Such crimes contribute greatly to the overall cost of cybercrime that the nation pays. Unfortunately, the situation is not going to improve. Off the line a little bit, but I have still witnessed people who use Maestro cards that only require a card number and one password to make huge transactions. The world has reached quantum encryption and RSA-enabled devices. We still face phishing crimes, vishing is the new in. And frauds are on the rise every day.
India also has RSA-enabled devices. However, the technology has yet to reach the geographical grassroots, which is a grey area. It would be amazing if only the population of India preaches cyber security and uses safe technologies, but it’s a loss that we face each year. The hard reality is that villages and small towns are still in the backlog. It is important to move the whole nation together towards this technological shift.

5. Social Networks:

Human trafficking via the web has picked up the pace lately. Other crimes such as bullying and defamation over social media are still happening and are expected to continue happening. In addition, the spam check on these networks is minimal, which means that spamming will be on the rise.

6. Gambling:

It’s the year of the world cup of Cricket! This means that there will definitely be online gambling, which unfortunately means that a lot of crimes involving online gambling go undetected. To add to the situation, there is no law that protects those engaging in online gambling.

7. Critical Infrastructure:

The Stuxnet attack is one of the most famous attacks under this head note. Stuxnet, a malicious computer worm, sabotaged Iran’s Uranium enrichment program. Going forward, we can expect similar attacks which may mostly target the government and corporations. The security of the nation is physically much more at risk.

8. Wearable technology:

Though the potential is massive, cybersecurity threats through the data collected from these devices are also prominent. There will be more educated burglaries, privacy violations and medical issues. Wearable tech gives out a lot of information about someone’s location, activities, and lifestyle. The data loss from these technologies will be very costly to individuals.

Biggest Anticipation for 2015: A Cyber Law Legislation

Such a good feeling at the end of it. It is expected that this year will mark the introduction of a new or amended IT Law in India that encapsulates things like online gambling, extortion, spamming, cyberbullying, and so on. All these types of crime need recognition so that they can be dealt with effectively.

Cyber Security Threats 2015 India