The MoU was signed by Jai Prakash Srivastava, Executive Director, on behalf of BHEL and AR Harish, Dean of Research & Development, on behalf of IIT Kanpur.

Some of the key areas for collaboration under this partnership include anti-unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technologies, UAV engines, manufacturing of composite fixed-wing UAVs of Medium Altitude Long Endurance (MALE) category, cyber security, etc.

This collaboration will also provide impetus to the Uttar Pradesh Defence Industrial Corridor initiative with technology development at IIT Kanpur followed by manufacturing at BHEL.

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With road accidents causing nearly 300 deaths (2015) each year in the Indian Army, Bengaluru-based Bharat Earth Movers Limited has come out with a Driver Fatigue Monitoring System to alert the authorities on when to change a driver.

The real-time, non-intrusive AI-based system will accurately predict and identify situations where drowsiness and fatigue in a driver may be setting in. The intelligent system detects such signals in the driver, while the vehicle is in motion.

The system continuously look out for symptoms of drowsiness, while considering physical cues like yawning, drooping eyelids, closed eyes and increased blink durations by using percentage of eyelid closure over the pupil against the time algorithm.

Bharat Electronics Limited has developed an AI enabled gesture recognition system that will inform the guards of a military unit if a person approaching the place is a friend or enemy.

The system that can be easily integrated on a network of IP enabled cameras, uses deep-learning to identify gestures like a human walking with or without a gun, crawling with or without a gun and crouching with or without a gun.

A third key technology would be the silent sentry developed by the Indian Army to plug the gaps in surveillance networks.

They are rail mounted robots that would be used as additional eyes and ears on the perimeters of units and installations to enhance the surveillance grid. Such robots are being used by South Korea and Israel to man their borders.

Other AI-based technologies include target tracking systems for the navy, deep sight canopy inspection for fighter jets and a predictive maintenance suite for the coast guard.

Overall the AI products to be used by the armed forces relate to unmanned and robotics systems, cyber security, human behaviour analysis, intelligent monitoring system, logistics and supply chain management, speech and voice analysis and Command, Control, Communication, Computer and Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) systems, and operational data analytics

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CERT-In is learnt to be working on releasing more details of the cybersecurity directive issued in April, which has been opposed by industry stakeholders. According to sources, the agency could clarify that the norms apply only to VPN providers who offer “Internet proxy like services” to “general Internet subscribers”, and not to corporate VPN service providers.

What are these norms that CERT-In is clarifying?

The norms, released on April 28, asked VPN service providers along with data centres and cloud service providers, to store information such as names, email IDs, contact numbers, and IP addresses (among other things) of their customers for a period of five years. Entities are also required to report cybersecurity incidents to CERT-In within six hours of becoming or being made aware of them.

The norms have triggered concerns over privacy, and CERT-In is expected to clarify that private information of individuals will not be affected by the directions.

“These directions do not envisage seeking of information by CERT-In from service providers on a continual basis as a standing arrangement. CERT-In may seek information from service providers in case of cyber security incidents and cyber incidents, on a case-to-case basis, for discharge of its statutory obligations to enhance cyber security in the country,” according to a person aware of the clarifications that CERT-In is in the process of finalising.

The agency is also likely to include in its clarifications that the April 28 directive to store such information and share it with CERT-In will “override” any contractual obligation VPN providers may have with their customers of not disclosing such information.

Queries sent to the IT Ministry and CERT-In Director General Sanjay Bahl were not immediately answered.

But why has CERT-In felt the need to issue a clarification?

Prominent VPN providers, a large part of whose value proposition is ensuring anonymity of their users on the Internet, have questioned the directives, and some providers like NordVPN are even considering pulling their servers from India should the directive be enforced on them.

“At the moment, our team is investigating the new directive recently passed by the Indian government and exploring the best course of action. As there are still at least two months left until the law comes into effect, we are currently operating as usual. We are committed to protecting the privacy of our customers, therefore, we may remove our servers from India if no other options are left,” Laura Tyrylyte, head of public relations at Nord Security, said.

VPN providers like Surfshark have claimed that their technology does not allow the logging of users’ information. “Surfshark has a strict no-logs policy, which means that we don’t collect or share our customer browsing data or any usage information,” Gytis Malinauskas, head of the legal department at Surfshark, said.

“Moreover, we operate only with RAM-only servers, which automatically overwrite user-related data. Thus at this moment, we would not be able to comply with the logging requirements even technically. We are still investigating the new regulations and its implications for us, but the overall aim is to continue providing no-logs services to all of our users,” Malinauskas said.

How has the government responded to these concerns?

Speaking to The Indian Express earlier this month, IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw had said there was “nothing to worry about” CERT-In’s norms. “There is no privacy concern. Suppose somebody takes a mask and shoots, wouldn’t you ask them to remove that mask? It is like that,” Vaishnaw had said during an interview.

Explaining the need for the rules, he had said, “Cybersecurity is something which is continuously evolving. So we have issued very comprehensive guidelines from CERT-In. Ultimately, if there is a threat to you, the police and you would both have to work together.”

“The basic concept (of the guidelines) is that the people who are actually running the infrastructure should take all possible steps to make sure that things are in place and if there is any breach, immediately inform us so that we can take action,” Vaishnaw said.

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The account, identified as fb.com/shaanti.patel.89737, which appears in the name of Shanti Patel, contaminated the systems in order to gain unauthorised access to the restricted data of the computer resources, they added.

The leak using Facebook and other apps first came to notice when Andhra Pradesh police launched an investigation into the matter based on source information in June 2020. It was one of the incidents that prompted the army to issue a directive on July 9, 2020 asking all its officers and soldiers to delete 89 social networking, micro-blogging and gaming apps including Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat among others from their devices.

NIA has now taken up the investigation on the basis of Andhra Pradesh police case to look into national and international linkages of the suspects and ramifications of data theft on the national security.

One of the officers cited above said the central anti-terror probe agency will look into the matter under Official Secrets Act (OSA), Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), Information Technology Act and conspiracy to wage a war against India as sensitive data may have been accessed by the suspects, who worked for the ISI. It is not known yet what kind of information was accessed using the malware installed on the devices of defence personnel.

Describing the modus operandi, an officer said “the ISI hackers posing as Facebook ‘Shanti Patel’ account befriended Indian defence personnel and then engaged with them through a private messenger chat on the internet.”

“The suspects spread the malware by displaying them as folder with attractive photographs of women,” this officer said.

Investigation has revealed the malware was being spread from an unknown location in Islamabad, Pakistan.

Earlier, NIA investigated a naval spy ring run by ISI, which used social media accounts to honey trap sailors for collecting sensitive and classified information regarding locations/movements of Indian naval ships and submarines in eastern naval command at Vishakhapatnam, and other defence establishments in 2018-19. At least 15 persons were arrested in the case and a charges sheet was filed in June 2020.

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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 PLA on the LAC on 15 June 2020.

Extensive operations in the fifth domain of warfare, ie, cyber space have, been a reality for decades, the other domains being land, sea, air, and space. The primary objective is cyber military superiority to provide freedom of action in, through, and from cyberspace to support mission objectives. The corollary is to deny freedom of action to adversaries.

Chinese Cyber Attacks

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.

Some of the Chinese cyber attacks that have made digital history in the past include:

• Operation Aurora (Jan 2010) affected Internet Explorer, Google and Adobe.

• New York Times’s employees, in Jan 2013, were attacked after it published an investigation into how relatives of the then Chinese prime minister, Wen Jiabao, accrued several billion dollars through business dealings.

• The personnel files of more than 20 million people of the US Office of Personnel Management (OPM), were stolen from Nov 2013 to April 2015.

• Four Chinese military hackers were indicted in 2020, for stealing data of 147 million Americans customers of credit-reporting agency Equifax.

• The Vatican’s computer systems were attacked (100 cyber threats a month) by suspected state-sponsored Chinese hackers in July 2020.

• Two Chinese hackers were indicted, on 7 July 2020, in a bid to steal data from Moderna Inc, the vaccine manufacturer.

Indian Targets

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 predomi-nant targets are sectors like government, defence, and telecommun-ications 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.

Russia-Ukraine War

Ukraine launched cyber attacks under Operation Groundbait in May 2016. The Surkov Leaks in Oct 2016 made public 2,337 e-mails and hundreds of attachments, with plans for seizing Crimea from Ukraine and fomenting separatist unrest in Donbas. The IT Army of Ukraine was established in Feb 2022 during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Anonymous, the hacker collective has declared cyberwar on Russia. The group has claimed credit for hacking the Russian Ministry of Defence database, and is believed to have hacked multiple state TV channels to show pro-Ukraine content.

The group has claimed credit for several distributed denial of service attacks. Its targets in the past have included the CIA, the Church of Scientology and Islamic State.

Anonymous’ Russian targets included:

• Roskomnadzor, the Russian government agency in charge of controlling access to social media sites.

• Russian news channels Russia 24, Channel One, and Moscow 24.

• Kremlin’s official website, the Ministry of Defence database, over 300 Russian media, as well as banking websites.

• Hacktivists wanted to keep Russians connected to the rest of the world and alternative media by publishing their data in the hope of exposing the censorship that the Russian government was putting on its citizens.

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.

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