With the advent of new technologies that have enabled new domains of warfare, the Indian Armed Forces must begin exploring how to exploit multi-domain operations as opposed to just land, air and maritime domain.

Cyber, Space and the Electromagnetic spectrum did not exist during previous conflicts.

Distributed, multi-domain and joint all domain operations (MDO and JADO) are fast becoming the defining doctrines of this new era.

Essentially, they are the synchronisation of aircraft, ground forces and vehicles, satellites and ships, their systems and all sources of data. Together they deliver a complete picture of the battlespace and empower personnel – in theatre or command – to quickly make decisions that drive action.

Cyberspace is a critical element of this new age of combat; as the electromagnetic spectrum itself – a string of frequencies from radio to microwaves, visible light, X-rays and gamma rays which transmit data – may become. The US, UK and others are looking ever more closely at it.

For future MDOs, artificial intelligence and machine learning will play a critical role, helping decipher data, determine its operational relevance and then present informed options for decision-making jointly across all Services.

If the Army can bring them together along with manoeuvre warfare, which is the Army’s strength, and integrate them at the time and point of choosing, this can open windows of domain superiority leading to denial of access and areas.

For example, Cyberspace can provide opening in the air domain by taking air defence weapons offline, which will then create openings for land and maritime, leading to a new level of complication for the enemy.

For example, when the enemy is engaging you with artillery or you are being engaged from the air, another domain brings in its effects to bear and neutralises the threat. It means you have to look at what equipment you need, what kind of network you need, what kind of training you need, and a lot of interoperability and inter-connectivity.

Cyber is ubiquitous across the battlefield and warfare. The Army has not yet made a beginning to use this domain to facilitate own operations or to disrupt the enemy’s. It does not have cyber forces. Cyber advisories and guidelines do not make up doctrines or methods to adopt in operations, much less in an integrated manner with other domains.

Russian forces have very expertly used the cyber domain to facilitate targeting with their artillery against Ukrainian ground forces demonstrating the ability to take action in one domain and produce an effect or dominate another domain.

The US Navy and Air Force are working on new technologies and capabilities through programmes like Project Overmatch and the Advanced Battle Management System, respectively. Together both forces have developed more than a dozen projects they are collaborating on, bringing all domains together to share and utilise information and assess and respond in synergy.

In the UK, this is being addressed by what the MoD calls the Digital Backbone, a digital transformation programme that will allow information sharing and communication regardless of the hardware being used.

We must at least learn from events in Ukraine, evolve our concepts, map out a phased delivery approach and experiment.

Air-Land Battle doctrine, once the flavour of studies at the Army War College involved two domains – air and land. That alone will not work in the future.

The Armed Forces are not currently organized or trained in this manner. The Training Commands of the three Services have a role and responsibility to integrate these capabilities.

Multi-domain warfare is something on which the Indian Armed Forces have to start at the very beginning and approach it from a joint aspect. Single service approach will just not do.

The goal is to better enable the Services to fight together effectively in all domains simultaneously, to present multiple dilemmas for the enemy. That will mean looking at how do we organize, how to equip and how to train to do that.

A new mindset is needed to enable multi-domain action.

The post EDITORIAL – Focus on Multi-domain Operations appeared first on IMR.

A Chinese hacking group called RedEcho is believed to have attacked Maharashtra’s electricity grid in March 2021, amidst an ongoing crisis in Ladakh. Hackears from North Korea penetrated the Kundankulam Nuclear Power Plant (KKNPP) in 2019 in a bid to test the cyber security of the plant and steal information about the reactor design.

Infrastructure Projects at Risk

India’s infrastructure projects, particularly those related to the country’s strategic interests, are considered to be at risk from cyberattacks by Chinese state-sponsored groups. These groups are known to have a significant capability in cyber espionage and have been accused of targeting infrastructure projects in other countries as well. In recent years, there have been a number of reported cyberattacks on Indian infrastructure projects, including attacks on power grids and transportation systems. The Indian government has acknowledged the risk and has taken steps to increase cybersecurity measures to protect its infrastructure projects, but it is a constant battle to stay ahead of the attackers.

PLA’s Cyber Attackers

In some ways, cyber war between India and China is already taking place – after India banned hundreds of Chinese mobile apps, limiting Chinese investments in the Indian economy and giving a bloody nose to the People’s Liberation Army on the Line of Actual Control on 15 June 2020.

In March 2013, DRDO’s computers were breached by Chinese hackers, who took files related to Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS), to a server in Guangdong in China and the Indian defence ministry ordered a probe.

China-linked hacker group, RedFoxtrot, from their intelligence Unit 69010, targeted India’s power sector, including conglomerate NTPC, in March 2021. RedFoxtrot’s predominant targets are sectors like government, defence, and telecommunications across Central Asia, India, and Pakistan.

Some Indian targets included Walchandnagar Industries engaged in India’s Nuclear and Space programmes, and defence manufacturer Alpha Design Technologies and Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL).

The Times Group (Feb, Aug 2021), Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), and MP Police Department (June 2021) have been targeted by suspected Chinese state-sponsored threat activity group TAG-28, which used Winnti malware. In June 2021, APT41 was responsible for cyber attack against Air India.

Recent Initiatives

The creation of the Defence Cyber Agency in 2019, Cyber Security Coord at the National Security Council (NSC), preparedness for offensive ops by the National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO), defensive measures by National Critical Info Infrastructure Protection Centre (NCIIPC) and the release of India’s National Cyber Security Policy (NCSP) are steps in the right direction. As roles and responsibilities of the armed forces, other government agencies as well as the private sector are articulated, the nation’s vulnerability to cyber attacks will decrease.

The vulnerabilities facing India’s Critical Infrastructure (CI) need to be addressed with greater urgency. Cyber attacks against India’s CI and Strategic Infrastructure (ST), such as nuclear power plants, are not new.

Defensive measures like having a cyber security framework, Cyber Security Awareness, Incident Response Tools, Vulnerability Assessment and Penetration Testing, Multi-Factor Authentication and so on are necessary but offensive defence is the key. Along with space, Indian must prepare for “cross-domain” warfare to include cyberspace.

Comments

China has been leading a worldwide hacking and economic espionage campaign, using cyber attacks to steal intellectual property in disregard of bilateral and multilateral agreements.

China is one of the world’s pre-eminent players using cyber weapons. Used as methods of espionage, state-sponsored data breaches and server hacks pose a significant threat to global security. China was responsible for worldwide rise of cyber crime by 600% during the Covid-19 pandemic. Even before the virus hit, China had overtaken Russia as the biggest state sponsor of cyber attacks against the West.

The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) of China is known to have trained hackers and offensive cyber groups for operations. These groups are believed to have been involved in a number of cyber espionage and cyber-attacks against various countries, including the United States and India. The PLA’s cyber units are thought to be well-funded and well-equipped, with a focus on both defensive and offensive capabilities. In addition to targeting government and military organizations, these groups have also been known to target private companies, particularly those in the technology and aerospace sectors. The Chinese government has denied any involvement in cyber-attacks, but evidence suggests otherwise. The US and other countries have accused China of using cyber espionage to gain an economic and strategic advantage.

The post India’s Vulnerability to Chinese Cyber Attacks appeared first on IMR.

Dr Lieber is a nanoscientist who studies and develops extremely small materials on the nanometer scale. The second, Yanging Ye, who is in China, is a Lieutenant of the People’s Liberation Army researched U.S. military projects and compiled information for the PLA on two U.S. scientists. The third, Zaosong Zheng, had conducted cancer research at Harvard’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and attempted to smuggle out 21 vials of biological specimens.

These three cases were not connected to the coronavirus pandemic, but nevertheless demonstrate the Chinese modus operandi to steal information from the Western countries.

The Case of Charles Lieber

Dr Charles Lieber, chair of Harvard University’s chemistry and chemical biology department, allegedly lied to both the Department of Defense and the National Institutes of Health about his affiliation with Wuhan University of Technology (WUT), and his involvement with China’s “Thousand Talents Plan,” a programme designed to recruit Chinese ex-pats and foreign scientists to China.

According to court documents, since 2008, Dr. Lieber who has served as the Principal Investigator of the Lieber Research Group at Harvard University, which specialized in the area of nanoscience, has received more than $15,000,000 in grant funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Department of Defense (DOD). These grants require the disclosure of significant foreign financial conflicts of interest, including financial support from foreign governments or foreign entities.

China’s Thousand Talents Plan is one of the most prominent Chinese Talent recruit programs seek to lure Chinese overseas talent and foreign experts to bring their knowledge and experience to China and reward individuals for stealing proprietary information. Under the terms of Lieber’s three-year Thousand Talents contract, WUT paid Lieber $50,000 per month, living expenses of up to Chinese Yuan 1,000,000 (approximately $158,000 at the time) and awarded him more than $1.5 million to establish a research lab at WUT.

In return, Lieber was obligated to work for WUT “not less than nine months a year” by “declaring international cooperation projects, cultivating young teachers and Ph.D. students, organizing international conference[s], applying for patents and publishing articles in the name of” WUT.

Lieber’s work was focused on novel ways of using nanowires in cells. He is not a biologist. The concern for investigators was that he was vulnerable to Chinese pressure in the future, because of the ‘corrupting’ amount of money involved.

Lieber was expected to disclose his Chinese ties and funds to Harvard and when receiving grant money from U.S. agencies. Lieber allegedly failed to do so on multiple occasions.

Furthermore, Lieber is charged with making false statements to the Department of Defense in 2018 and to the NIH in January 2019, well before the COVID-19 outbreak at the end of last year.

Yanging Ye

According to the indictment, Ye is a Lieutenant of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), the armed forces of the People’s Republic of China and member of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). On her J-1 visa application, Ye falsely identified herself as a “student” and lied about her ongoing military service at the National University of Defense Technology (NUDT), a top military academy directed by the CCP.

It is further alleged that while studying at Boston University’s (BU) Department of Physics, Chemistry and Biomedical Engineering from October 2017 to April 2019, Ye continued to work as a PLA Lieutenant completing numerous assignments from PLA officers such as conducting research, assessing U.S. military websites and sending U.S. documents and information to China.

According to court documents, on 20 April 2019, federal officers interviewed Ye at Boston’s Logan International Airport. During the interview, it is alleged that Ye falsely claimed that she had minimal contact with two NUDT professors who were high-ranking PLA officers. However, a search of Ye’s electronic devices demonstrated that at the direction of one NUDT professor, who was a PLA Colonel, Ye had accessed U.S. military websites, researched U.S. military projects and compiled information for the PLA on two U.S. scientists with expertise in robotics and computer science.

Furthermore, a review of a WeChat conversation revealed that Ye and the other PLA official from NUDT were collaborating on a research paper about a risk assessment model designed to decipher data for military applications.  During the interview, Ye admitted that she held the rank of Lieutenant in the PLA and admitted she was a member of the CCP.

Ye, who is currently in China, does not have expertise in virology.

Zaosong Zheng

Zaosong Zheng, a 30-year-old Chinese national, who had conducted cancer research at Harvard’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, attempted to smuggle 21 vials of biological specimens out of the country.

In August 2018, Zheng had entered the United States on a J-1 visa and conducted cancer-cell research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston from Sept. 4, 2018, to Dec. 9, 2019. It is alleged that on Dec. 9, 2019, Zheng stole 21 vials of biological research and attempted to smuggle them out of the United States aboard a flight destined for China.

Federal officers at Logan Airport discovered the vials hidden in a sock inside one of Zheng’s bags, and not properly packaged. It is alleged that initially, Zheng lied to officers about the contents of his luggage, but later admitted he had stolen the vials from a lab at Beth Israel. Zheng stated that he intended to bring the vials to China to use them to conduct research in his own laboratory and publish the results under his own name.

Zheng was charged with smuggling goods from the U.S. and making false statements to Customs and Border Protection officers. He remains in custody.

The FBI agent’s affidavit noted that the vials contained a brown liquid and that Zheng said he had stolen eight of the vials from the lab and then worked to replicate the remaining 11 without the knowledge of Beth Israel.

The Beth Israel lab in which Zheng had worked is focused on basic research about cancer, and studies, for example, the molecular details of how cancerous cells are able to overcome the normal checks on the cell cycle to form tumors.

Thousand Talents Plan

The Thousand Talents Plan or Thousand Talents Program was established in 2008 by the central government of China to recognize and recruit leading international experts in scientific research, innovation, and entrepreneurship – in other words to steal western technology.

At an April 2018 hearing titled “Scholars or Spies”, organized by two subcommittees of the US House of Representatives, the commissioner of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, Michael Wessel, advised Congress to cut federal grants, loans or other assistance to participants of the Thousand Talents Plan. China has put “sleeper agents at our research universities to steal our scientific breakthroughs,” said Representative Lamar Smith, chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, at the hearing.

Comments

What has Lieber’s arrest got to do with the global spread of the COVID-19 pandemic? Perhaps nothing. But joining the dots points to a secretive nexus between US scientists and China in its bid to access highly classified US research, especially in biotechnology.

Wuhan is one of China’s most important high-tech hubs. Like Harvard Professor Charles Lieber’s contractual work with the Wuhan University of Technology, a large number of US scientists work on assignments with Chinese universities. Lieber’s arrest will have a chilling effect on the American scientific community. The Wuhan University of Technology has 27 innovative research centres and several laboratories.

Wuhan itself is a city of many parts. It hosted the “Wuhan Spirit” informal summit between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Xi Jinping in 2018. But Wuhan has much more to commend itself. The city has attracted investors from 80 countries. It hosts over 6,000 foreign-owned companies. Fortune 500 firms have a large presence in Hubei – 85 have investments in the province. Wuhan has a large bio-industry. Located in a picturesque area dubbed “Biolake” – known officially as the Wuhan National Bio-Industry Base – the complex has six centres: biology innovation, biomedicine, bio farming, medical devices, medical health and bioenergy.

The post CHINA : How China Accesses Highly Classified US Research appeared first on IMR.

The role of Big Tech in challenging the idea of democracy, idea of government and the idea of the nation itself in the battlefields of public opinion is one of the most crucial and least discussed subjects of our time.

Today, we are observing a strange scenario where Google search algorithms can be corrected on demand (from Muslim community) to display the desired results on the search of words like “Jihad” and “Sharia” but newsfeeds  on a democratically elected government’s decisive moves – from Article 370 to Ayodhya verdict to CAA – can never be sorted to reflect the truth, balanced and real information. Big Tech platforms like Facebook, which supports “voice and free expression” can openly assure full support to the Islamic Republic of Pakistan for their brutal blasphemy laws but when the security agencies of democratic countries like India seek their cooperation in decrypting terrorists’ communications and ask for data on potential national security threats, they play the weird “privacy” card. On one such hearing on privacy rights (October 2019) India’s Attorney General KK Venugopal told the Supreme Court that “a terrorist cannot claim privacy,” and these Big internet platforms “can’t come into the country and say we will establish a non-decryptable system.”

From many years, headlines about China’s counterfeiting and hacking capabilities and its censorship on internet/US tech products have caught attention the world over. From 2016, Russia’s attempts to influence U.S. elections have also been subject of popular discussion but, in between all these somewhere, serious threats that Big tech products (Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc) can pose to national security, often get ignored.

There is a need to remember that, in 2014, Islamic State’s invasion of Iraq launched with the Twitter hash tag #AllEyesOnISIS, which later become its key propaganda machine and ISIS leveraged these popular tech platforms particularly Facebook and Twitter as its key instruments. From recruiting terrorists to calling foreign fighters (from some 100 countries) and to making Islamic State’s propaganda viral across the continents, these apps had facilitated almost everything.

These Big Tech platforms proudly claim that their goal is to provide the “power of voice” to billions of people across the world but does that claim give an excuse and scope for the exploitation of the same platforms by the terrorist elements too. Jihadist use of Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp, etc. is a hugely debated issue and with each passing year new dimensions are emerging – merely discussing them as they come to notice is not sufficient.

Sometime back android users of India have reported an app called “2020 Sikh Referendum” which was made available for download on Google Playstore – the official app store for Android apps. This app was linked to the US-based separatist group “Sikhs for Justice”, which the Indian government had banned in July 2019 for spreading secessionism and carrying out anti-national activities. In November 2019, on similar lines, it came to notice that some Apps at Google Playstorewere spreading literature on ‘Ghazwa-e-hind’ – a Islamic doctrine aimed at the conquest of India, which Pakistani terrorists groups were propagating since several decades. According to some social media users, who first reported this app, more than 5000 users had downloaded that app from the Google Playstore before it came to adverse notice.

Misinformation Campaigns on CAA

One of the most recent examples of these popular tech products’ experiments was seen in India, where, on the issue of amendments in the Citizenship Act, hundreds of people from the Muslim community, backed by Communist Party of India (CPI and CPI-M) and some opposition leaders, put the lives and properties of the common people in danger. The manner in which mobs organized via social media apps terrorized the common people including school going kids, attacked public transportation&railways, burned several buses and private vehicles and attacked the police and security agencies with stones and bricks in different locations – was disturbing for all democratic societies.

During January, security agencies traced more than 5,000 Pakistan-based social media handles, which were involved in actively spreading false propaganda on CAA. Some of them were using deep fake videos of protests to incite communal violence in the country. When violent protests in Jamia Millia Islamia and Jawaharlal Nehru universities broke out, then these Pakistan-backed Twitter handles, Facebook posts and YouTube videos were used widely to spread incitement and hatred against the Indian government and Delhi Police. The problem escalated to an extent that the Ministry of Home Affairs had to issue an advisory to States and Union Territories to act against fake news and rumors on social media.

Pakistan’s Warfare of Narratives

Lately, Opposition parties have repeatedly questioning the Modi government’s decision to shutdown the Internet in Jammu & Kashmir (after the abrogation of Article 370) and tried hard to internationalize the issue but they have completely rejected the alarming incidents, which have shaped a new form of militancy in the region. In promoting militants and their ideas, these popular tech products are playing a key role. Militants do not now need print or electronic media’s support to spread their “Call for Jihad.” They can simply share their videos or pictures on social media platforms and before they come to the notice of the security agencies, they reach thousands of users.

In 2017, nearly 300 WhatsApp groups (each with around 250 members) were caught mobilizing and coordinating with stone-pelters in Kashmir to disrupt the operations of the security forces by attacking them during crucial operations. Due to their in-built end-to-end encryption features, these apps facilitate in the communication/coordination of the militants. In 2013, Lashkar-e-Tayyeba (LeT) expanded rapidly across all social media platforms and held Social Media workshops at Faislabad, Islamabad and Karachi. In December 2015, LeT chief Hafiz Saeed launched his cyber cell. In April 2017, Jamaat-ud-Dawah (JuD) issued multiple advertisements for social media workshops, which sought volunteers for instigating unrest in the Valley and the cyber team of JuD North Punjab openly posted their campaign posters on Twitter and Facebook with “Join #SocialMedia workshops to know Social Media as an instrument for Kashmir uprise 2k17” kind of statements.

This ‘warfare of the narratives’ has gained new momentum with each passing year. In April 2019, a network of more than 100 Facebook and Instagram pages, run by the employees of the Inter-Service Public Relations (ISPR) wing of the Pakistani military, was caught spreading anti-India propaganda and intense hate content. By disguising themselves as Kashmir activists’ voices these Facebook and Instagram pages/groups were involved in openly facilitating a coordinated strategy of the Pakistani Army. Some of these accounts had been active for five to six years; they spent dollars on Facebook ads to promote aggressive content against India and were openly mobilizing the followers and support for their radical Islamist ideas but strangely remained unnoticed by Facebook itself.

Even U.S. President Donald Trump has tweeted how US-based Big tech companies have not coordinated with his government and security agencies in dealing with criminals, terrorists and drug dealers. When these companies are ignorant about their home country’s national security concerns can we expect them to take our national security concerns seriously?

Time to Step In

These platforms are now becoming the facilitators of Jihadist actors’ intra-group financing and communication tools. Research conducted by the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism highlights how the terrorists use these social media platforms to report about the live status of their operations to their fellow members through pictures, videos, and written statements and to circulate messages among their network.

Launched with the promise of promoting innovation and creativity, these digital and social media products are now the facilitators of lone-wolf attackers. According to a recent study (on 700 terrorists, who took part in 560 attacks in Israel) conducted by Israel’s Public Security Ministry and International Institute for Counter-Terrorism, 60 per cent of lone-wolf terrorists, who carried out attacks from 2015 to 2017, posted preliminary information regarding their intentions on social media and close to 95 per cent of the terrorists used social media at least once before carrying out those attacks, which indicates that an absence of fundamental intelligence and monitoring helped these lone-wolf attackers to fulfill their objectives. If these tech companies had coordinated in time with the security agencies many of those attacks could have been stopped.

It is quite evident that the core purposes of these Big Tech products is not business and profit anymore. They have developed a kind of fantasy to control minds through data and algorithms. Their smart business model allows them to keep the information about their original customers in the shadows.

Even after facing embarrassments from across the world on their careless approach towards terrorist and anti-national uses, instead of developing a mechanism of cooperating with the local governments and their security/counter-terrorism agencies these Big Tech companies decided to establish their own independent counter-terrorism body. In 2017, Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter and Google’s YouTube founded the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT), whose mission statement interestingly says the goal is to “prevent terrorists and violent extremists from exploiting digital platforms.”

Business and technology are crucial for economic growth, and the concept of “freedom of expression” is one of the essential ingredients of a healthy society. But at the same time, no business idea, activity or product should be allowed to disturb the foundational elements that bind a society and nation together, and can never be allowed to challenge national security goals.

The urgency for disrupting the Big Tech is already there. From time to time our industry leaders and defense personnel have raised voices on the need for building our own tech platforms. The monopoly of only a few foreign tech tycoons is neither a good sign for the tech industry nor our national interests. At the same time, we can neither follow a Chinese model of protectionism nor Islamic nations’ rigid approach. A country like India, which has a surplus of young talent, can deal with this challenge in the Indian way. We have the potential to disrupt the tech industry to make it a level playing field. We can remain open and come up with our popular and robust versions in parallel to Google, Facebookand Twitter.

The post Information Warfare : Curbs on Big Tech Necessary appeared first on IMR.