Antony asks top military brass to ensure security of cyber systems

Defense minister A K Antony yesterday asked the top brass of the military to ensure that the country's cyber systems were secure and non-porous at the highest level.

"The paradigms of security in the age of information technology are seldom constant. The evolving security matrix is complex and calls for cooperation and coordination of the highest level,'' said Antony, while inaugurating an Army commanders' conference in New Delhi.

He added that today no single service could work in isolation and cyber-warfare and threats to cyber-security were fast emerging as the next generation of threats.

Antony's observations come following the discovery of some classified data leak pertaining to the tri-service Andaman and Nicobar Command, Fortan, and other formations after an army major's personal computer was accessed by online espionage agents from Pakistan earlier this year.

China too has given top priority to cyber-warfare in its military strategies with Chinese hackers regularly breaking into sensitive computer networks of India as also other countries including the US, UK and Germany.

A group of Canadian and American cyber-security researchers has also in their recent report titled Shadows in the Cloud, revealed that China-based gangs had accessed classified documents from several Indian defence and security establishments.