Focused on Pakistan rather than China, India in Tier 3 as cyber power: Report

What is the News?  

International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), a think tank, has released a report titled “Cyber Capabilities and National Power: A Net Assessment”.  

About the Report:  

• The report assesses the cyber capabilities of 15 countries and how they contribute to national power.  
• Parameters: The report measured each country’s capabilities in seven categories; Strategy and doctrine, Governance, command and control, Core cyber-intelligence capability , Cyber empowerment and dependence, Cyber security and resilience, Global leadership in cyberspace affairs, Offensive cyber capability.    

Key Findings of the Report: The report has ranked the countries by dividing them into three Tiers:  

• Tier-1: US is the only country in the first tier for its world-leading strengths across all the seven categories.  
• Tier-2: The countries in this category are: Australia, Canada, China, France, Israel, Russia and the United Kingdom. These countries have world-leading strengths in some of the seven categories.  
• Tier-3: India has been put in the third tier meant for countries that have strengths or potential strengths in some of these categories but significant weaknesses in others.   
• The other countries in this category are: Japan, Iran, Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia and North Korea.  

Other Key Findings:  

• India’s offensive cyber capability is Pakistan-focused and regionally effective and not tuned towards China.  
• India has made only modest progress in developing its policy and doctrine for cyberspace security despite the geo-strategic instability of its region and a keen awareness of the cyber threat it faces.  
• Moreover, China’s cyber power is clearly inferior to that of the US and substantially below the combined cyber power of the Five Eyes alliance.  
• Five Eyes is an intelligence alliance comprising Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States. These countries are parties to the multilateral UK-USA Agreement, a treaty for joint cooperation in signals intelligence.  

  Source: Indian Express