Dark Web Nightmares

Weak in attack and defence, India walks blind down an unseen war.

- Arushi Bedi

Think national security and the first thing that comes to mind is the soldier sitting at the border, arms in hand, firing shell after shell to protect his sovereign country come what may. The images might be largely correct, but then long gone are the days of mechanised warfare fought on land with guns and tanks alone.

Armed forces throughout the world are now equipping themselves to fight a new kind of unseen war. These are ones fought behind computer screens, but those that have the ability to disrupt countries in ways that don’t just lead to bloodshed of a few at the border. They can trigger mass shutdowns, affecting the lives of common people in ways unim­aginable a decade ago.

Cyber warfare—referred by the armed forces as fifth-generation warfare—is now a reality. It can be starkly seen in moves that have targeted Iranian nucl­ear reactors through a mass-spread virus, allegedly launched by the Israeli and American armed forces in 2012. Stuxnet, as it’s called, caused substantial damage not only to Iran, but other countries too. India has been the third-largest effected country using this attack, raising speculations that the malicious computer-­work alone led to the shutdown of the country’s ISAT-4B satellite following a power failure in 2010. (ISRO later rubbished the claim.)

Such being the growing military space, India—as the world’s fourth largest military superpower—is expected to possess cutting-edge technology to protect its military as well as its people. Yet, dig a little deeper and the cracks in protection begin to widen. India lies in a strategic position, with disputed borders between both China and Pakistan—the biggest threat to security.