A couple of weeks ago, the government set up an expert committee under the National Cyber Security Coordinator to look into revelations that a Chinese technology company with links to China’s government had been monitoring Indian citizens and organizations.
India is not the only country concerned about such cyberattacks. The United States (US) department of defense (DoD) last week exposed an information-stealing malware, SlothfulMedia, which they said was being used to launch cyberattacks against targets in India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Malaysia, Russia, and Ukraine.
There have been several legislative fights over cyber bills. While some have characterized these as partisan battles that have left America exposed to a growing variety of cyber threats, this is not generally true. Many cyber bills have had bipartisan support as well as bipartisan opposition. The fight is not over a need for appropriate cyber legislation; the fight is over how to define “appropriate.”
In recent years, with the growing affordability of space technologies alongside the growing participation of corporations and non-government organizations, the notion of the ‘democratization of space’ has come into the public eye.
This paradigm shift will realize greater space accessibility for humanity, undoing the previous reality of exclusive access by global superpowers and wealthy corporations. This is reinforced by the UN Space Benefits Declaration, which stresses cooperation and equity in outer space.
Paradoxically, this envisioned open-access domain forms a launchpad for terrorists. Consequently, this illustrates new regulatory challenges amid space democratization and an increasing awareness that non-state actors in the space domain are not always ‘good’. Governments should consider dedicated transparency and confidence-building measures.
This could consist of increased information sharing systems mapping the emerging cyber-capabilities of terrorist groups between countries alongside agreed minimal cybersecurity standards. Besides the clear priority to bolster cybersecurity in outer space, thwarting cyberterrorism must be a cooperative effort.
Who is behind the threat?
More dangerous attacks and ensuing shocks should be expected in the future. Most worrisome are incidents that corrupt the integrity of financial data, such as records, algorithms, and transactions; few technical solutions are currently available for such attacks, which have the potential to undermine trust and confidence more broadly. The malicious actors behind these attacks include not only increasingly daring criminals—such as the Carbanak group, which targeted financial institutions to steal more than $1 billion from 2013–to 18—but also states and state-sponsored attackers (see table). North Korea, for example, has stolen some $2 billion from at least 38 countries in the past five years.
Reducing the Risk
There are a number of measures that can be taken to reduce the risk of cyber-attacks, which include:
• Training – educating employees on how to securely use the company’s systems and recognize potential breaches.
• Keep systems up-to-date – securing ‘patch’ software to automatically update programs to fix security vulnerabilities and carry out regular scans.
• Monitor removable media – limit employee access to removable media, such as memory sticks, and scan them before uploading data to company software.
• Manage and monitor IT systems and networks – control the access of employees, limit the number of privileged users, monitor activity, and log and analyze unusual activity.
• Create a disaster recovery plan – produce and test plans to ensure the business is prepared in the event of an incident.
• Establish anti-malware protection – scan for malware across the business.
• Protect networks – implement network security controls to protect networks from internal and external attacks.
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