Increasing threats and Challenges of Cyberattack
A regional emergency was declared after a cyberattack on America’s largest fuel pipeline. The attack on the Colonial Pipeline caused a crisis in diesel, gas and jet fuel in the US East Coast states, as this pipeline carries 2.5 million barrels of oil per day, which supplies forty-five per cent of the oil to these places.
It has been confirmed that this ransomware attack was carried out by a cybercriminal gang named Darkside. Dark sight is not a well-known name in the world of cybercrime, but this incident shows that attacks like ransomware can pose a threat not only to a profession or an office but also to the industrial infrastructure of a country.
According to London-based cybersecurity company Digital Shadows, Darkside operates as a commercial company that makes software for piracy and hacking. He then trains allies involved in the crime and teaches them how to attack.
Digital Shadows also says that due to the corona virus-induced epidemic, many engineers work from homes and remotely control the pipeline’s control systems, which were also exploited by cyber attackers. Even if this attack happened in America, India is not immune to this danger in a rapidly digital world.
It is not too old when Chinese hackers tried a cyber attack on the vaccine manufacturer Serum Institute of India and Bharat Biotech in India. In October 2020, a large part of Mumbai’s power grid had failed and Mumbai was covered in darkness.
Increasing Challenges and threats of Cyberattack
US-based Massachusetts-based cybersecurity company Recorded Future said in a report that a group of Chinese government-backed hackers targeted the power grid in Mumbai through malware. However, the Central Government did not consider such a cyber attack.
According to an IBM report of cyberattacks, India was fighting the Corona epidemic in 2020, on the one hand, it suffered the most cyberattacks in the whole Asia-Pacific region after Japan.
It is important that most of the cyber attacks occurred on banking and insurance companies. In 2020, seven per cent of the total cyber attacks in Asia occurred on Indian companies.
Cyber attacks can happen in many ways, such as website defining, in which a government website is hacked and its appearance is changed. This shows that such a website has been the victim of a cyber attack.
The second method is a phishing attack, in which a hacker sends a link via email or message, on which all the data of the computer or website is leaked as soon as it is clicked.
Apart from this, the backdoor attack is also a way in which malware is sent to the computer to receive all the information of the consumer.
There are two institutions in India to protect against cyber attacks. One is CERT, known as the Computer Emergency Response Team. It was established in the year 2004.
The second institution is the National Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Center, which is responsible for the cybersecurity of defence, telecommunications, transport, banking, etc. It has been operating in India since 2014. India does not yet have a separate law to deal with cyber attacks.
In such a case, action is taken only under the IT Act, in which there are provisions to block the website. Neither the provisions are effective nor sufficient.
Such is the world of computers, which consists of many proxy servers and no government of the world can always keep an eye on the Internet network spread across the world, in such a situation, an awareness rescue strategy can save the country from these attacks.
Written by Nishant Chandravanshi founder of Chandravanshi.
Source :
