Muhammad Attaullah Khan

Pakistan having a population of more than 250 million is fast moving towards the digitalization  environment which hosts , which hosts millions of people who participate in substantive online engagement.  There are estimates that country’s Internet penetration will surpass 111m users by mid of the year 2025.While this exponential growth suggests immense technological advancement and elaborate level of connectivity, it also presents significant challenges as the need to defend the Cyber users ranging from various government Ministries to banking to defence sector to common people usage reveals a diverse and multifaceted online experience. A cursory view of online users in Pakistan indicates : Facebook leads 44.5m users, YouTube 71.7m , TikTok 54.38m and Instagram 17.3m users.

CHALLENGES ON CYBER RIGHTS:

The challenges being faced by Pakistan to defend itself from Cyber attacks of diverse origin,  resonate with international exposition on cyber rights and governance. The international organizations including UN have emphasized the need for regulatory frameworks to monitor the development and use of Artificial Intelligence,  especially because social and technological revolutions have always coexisted. There is no denying fact that the existential threats posed by unregulated AI as well as having been no worthwhile on-

going research on Cybersecurity or Cyber Defence is being carried out in country and whole of infrastructure including IOT, Banking channels and other ICT hubs connected with multiple end users.

EMERGING THREATS:

The investigative agencies in Pakistan had noted recently that the Cybercrimes including financial frauds, harassment,  fake profiles , defamation,  hacking and malware usage are on the rise . Main reason behind is lack of knowledge of defence against these Cyber disruptions or weak implementation of existing Cybersecurity laws.Social media provided the biggest platforms on which Cyber attacks were carried out. Moreover,  enhanced connectivity of the government institutions with cyberspace,  especially their opening of the social media accounts,  aggravated the already precarious situation. This is akin to inviting the cyber-attacks categorised into 3-Cs : cybercrime , cyber terrorism and cyber warfare. Moreover,  cyberspace has seen a new rivalry and ongoing competition amongst various countries. While US has been propagating a free and open cyberspace,  Russia and China are highlighting the concept cyber-sovereignty. The concept being put forward by Russia and China seeks data localisation and extended control over the flow of information and Internet users. Besides China and Russia,  several other states including Pakistan are pursuing the concept of ” data localisation ” and information protection strategies. 

URGENT NEEDS :

Pakistan as well as other developing countries are in urgent need of establishing of centres with help of those countries which already have crossed major milestones in ever expanding field of “cyber defence “.

Following areas be given priority in this field if developing countries have to cope with rising challenges of cybersecurity:

a- Smart Devices Security :

State of the art  research centres be established to focus on security analysis of Android OS, its customization addressing privacy concerns of users that include but not limited to securing files, folders,  pictures,  gallery , sending of usage statistics to Google,  provision of strong user control of device sensors ie GPS, Windows, Mobile Networks, Camera,Mic etc.

b- Network Cyber Defence:

The secure network infrastructure against cyber attacks is one of the top priorities in any private sector,  government departments,  militarily or intelligence agencies as well as in nuclear institutions. Network Cyber Defence has to play an important role in any country. The most important research in this field will be if indigenous security information and event management are embedded with international best practices. 

In nutshell,  the cyber defence measures are not confined only to above-mentioned areas. Cyber Defence encompasses vast areas of our everyday life ie social media forensics,  computer forensics, mobile forensics, advanced threat protection,  end point security,  Internet security, security testing,  secured future grids,blockchain security,  secured IoT devices, cloud security,  software security as well as infrastructure security and so on. All this needs state of the art labs equipped with latest research involving development of secure systems. Of course it depends upon the core areas of computer science and computational intelligence. However,  there is a prerequisite of national centres in developing countries ie AI,Robotics, Data science and Mathematics. There shall be a strong connection between symbolic and non- symbolic computation conjointly between applied and theoretical areas.

The author is former Joint Director General, Intelligence Bureau and geo-political analyst