The IDSA report, prepared by a public-private sector cybersecurity task force set up in 2011 to examine the cybersecurity challenges facing India, warned about catastrophic consequences if the Indian government and industry do not plan and implement measures to strengthen critical infrastructure protection against cyber terrorism, espionage, and warfare.
Among other things, the report recommended that the Indian National Security Adviser strengthen interministerial cooperation on cybersecurity and the Indian military set up a new Cyber Command to manage cyber defense and cyberwarfare.
Commenting about the report, National Security Adviser Shiv Shankar Menon said that India needs to “harden its critical networks and develop metrics to certify and assure that our critical cyber networks, equipment and infrastructure are secure”, adding that “we must find ways to indigenously generate manpower, technologies and equipment that we require for our cyber security.”
Menon said that the government is preparing a “whole-of-government" cybersecurity architecture and that the IDSA report is a “significant contribution towards increasing an understanding of the issue of cybersecurity and of what we should be worrying about in this field.”