Congressional panel calls for cyber security partnership with India

Sujay Mehdudia
NEW DELHI: At a recent Con-

gressional hearing, the U.S. Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacic termed the Asian region the cyber security battleground beset by some of the worlds most aggressive cyber state actors and non-state players and pitched for strong U.S.-India partnership on security issues. The call for partnership came close on the heels of India unveiling a National Cyber Security Policy aimed at protecting the public and private infrastructure from attacks. The policy also intends to safeguard information, such as personal information (of web users), nancial and banking information and sovereign data. Asia has become the most economically dynamic region in the world; it has also become the hub of cyber conict. Alternatively, while Asia is not an actual battleground as we know one to be or in the throes of a drawn out war, this term symbolises that the region is faced with many serious threats and actors that are unstable, uncertain and volatile, Sub-committee chairman Rep. Steve Chabot said in his opening remarks during the hearing. Mr. Chabot said one could not forget the cyber threats emerging from Pakistan that challenge the national security of the U.S. and its neighbour, India. Mutual distrust dominates the relationship, which severely hampers opportunities for bilateral cooperation. As home to numerous terrorist groups, the cyber risks materialising from Pakistan are exceedingly multifarious, he remarked. Just the other day, the director of the National Security Agency said: Terrorists use our communication devices. They use our networks they use Skype, they use Yahoo, they use Google and they are trying to kill our people. Cyber terrorism is real. He said the hearing was part of the efforts to examine how to advance this

strategy in such a critical region of the world as Asia. Almost every day, U.S. businesses are victims of cyber exploitation and theft by nation-state actors such as China. Theft of intellectual property not only takes away American jobs and hurts innovation and competitiveness, but it costs U.S. businesses somewhere between $2400 billion a year. Experts who deposed before the Committee said both India and the U.S. need to forge a strong partnership as India faced threat in the cyber sphere from Pakistan, China and non-state actors. The Indians primary concern in cyber security is with Pakistan and Pakistani non-state actors or state-sponsored actors launching some kind of attack against India. Their second concern is Chinese espionage, James Lewis, Director and Senior Fellow, Centre for Strategic International Studies Technology and Public Policy Programme said. One of the things that works in our favour is they arent particularly friends with the Chinese all the time, and they worry a lot about it. So we have an opportunity to work with India. The thing we have to avoid in doing that is giving the impression that were trying to contain China. The Chinese worry about this a lot. We do need to build up partnership with India, but we have to do it in a way that does not appear to be deliberately trying to contain China, Mr. Lewis said in response to a question. Karl Rauscher, Chief Technology Officer and Distinguished Fellow, at the East West Institute, said New Delhis decision to create a National Cyber Coordination Centre was a step in the right direction. Noting that India was recognised as the leading producer of international spam, he said: Their coordination with external experts to root out these sources of spam is really critical not only for India but for the rest of the world, particularly English-speaking countries.