{"id":95485,"date":"2021-03-16T10:35:38","date_gmt":"2021-03-16T05:05:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=95485"},"modified":"2021-03-16T11:44:49","modified_gmt":"2021-03-16T06:14:49","slug":"increasing-cyber-threat-and-need-for-cyber-strategy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/increasing-cyber-threat-and-need-for-cyber-strategy\/","title":{"rendered":"Increasing cyber threat and need for Cyber strategy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Synopsis: <\/strong>As per the reports, China is increasing cyber-attacks. India needs to prepare a <a href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/cyber-attacks-and-cyber-security-in-india-explained-pointwise\/\">cyber strategy<\/a> to tackle cyber warfare effectively.<\/p>\n<h5><strong>Background<\/strong><\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li>Recently, the <strong>Recorded Future (a U.<\/strong>S.-based cybersecurity firm) revealed an increase in suspected targeted intrusions against India from Chinese state-sponsored groups.<\/li>\n<li>Also, according to State authorities in Maharashtra, the October 2020 blackout in Mumbai was directly linked to Chinese cyber-attack.<\/li>\n<li>Indian cyber agencies such as the <strong>National Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Centre<\/strong> (NCIIPC) and the <strong>Indian Computer Emergency Response Team<\/strong> (CERT-In) may have information on China\u2019s aggressive cyber campaign.<\/li>\n<li>Thus, India needs to adopt comprehensive measures to guard its critical infrastructure from the cyber threat posed by China.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h5><strong>What are the revelations made by the Recorded Future?<\/strong><\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>One,<\/strong> at least 10 Indian power sector organisations have been targeted, in addition to two Indian ports.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Two<\/strong>, they have also identified the network infrastructure viz., <strong>AXIOMATICASYMPTOTE <\/strong>used for this purpose. Servers of AXIOMATICASYMPTOTE are known to be used by <strong>RedEcho. It is<\/strong>\u00a0a China-linked activity group, that targets India\u2019s power sector, and facilitates the employment of a malware known as<strong> Shadowpad.<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>\n<li>ShadowPad is a <strong>network intrusion malware <\/strong>that creates a secret path from a targeted system to a command-and-control server to extract information.<\/li>\n<li>ShadowPad is affiliated with both the Chinese Ministry of State Security and the People\u2019s Liberation Army<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h5><b>What are the recent infamous cyber espionages at the global level?<\/b><\/h5>\n<p><strong>China:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Chinese hackers are suspected for the development of a global \u2018<strong>spearphishing campaign\u2019. It <\/strong><strong>targeted<\/strong> organizations responsible for vaccine storage and transportation. Its objectives are to;\n<ul>\n<li>target vaccine research<\/li>\n<li>gain future access to corporate networks<\/li>\n<li>collect sensitive information relating to COVID-19 vaccine distribution.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Also, recently in 2021, several thousands of U.S. organizations were hacked in by Chinese espionage campaign. The Chinese group, Hafnium, was identified as responsible for this breach. They exploited a series of flaws in the Microsoft software, that enabled them to gain total remote control over affected systems.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h5><strong>Russia:<\/strong><\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li>Russia has been accused of cyber interference in the U.S. presidential elections in 2016.<\/li>\n<li>Also, Russia is currently the prime suspect in one of the greatest data breaches concerning the U.S. Federal government.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Headlined SolarWinds<\/strong>, cyber-attack in 2020 is a prime example of the damage that can be caused by a cyber-attack.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>How other countries are preparing to deter cyber warfare?<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>First, <\/strong>the US, to improve its readiness and resilience in cyberspace, made a budgetary allocation of over $10 billion for cybersecurity in his COVID-19 Relief Bill.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Second<\/strong>, China\u2019s 2021 Defence Budget ($209 billion) gives special weightage to the <strong>Strategic Support Force (SSF)<\/strong>, which embraces cyber warfare.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The Ukraine example (cyber-attack on the Power grid in 2016) should be a wake-up call for India and the world. It reminds us of the availability of advanced malware to carry out sophisticated cyber-attacks. Hence, preparing a comprehensive cyber strategy, that fully acknowledges the extent of the cyber threat from China and other countries, should be recognised as an immediate necessity.<\/p>\n<p><strong> Sources: <a href=\"https:\/\/epaper.thehindu.com\/Home\/ShareArticle?OrgId=GDC8CI8VC.1&amp;imageview=0\">The Hindu<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Synopsis: As per the reports, China is increasing cyber-attacks. India needs to prepare a cyber strategy to tackle cyber warfare effectively. Background Recently, the Recorded Future (a U.S.-based cybersecurity firm) revealed an increase in suspected targeted intrusions against India from Chinese state-sponsored groups. Also, according to State authorities in Maharashtra, the October 2020 blackout in&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/increasing-cyber-threat-and-need-for-cyber-strategy\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Increasing cyber threat and need for Cyber strategy<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10316,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[1361],"class_list":["post-95485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-sec_4","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704828931},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10316"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95485"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95485\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}