China, and India issued SOP to attack not only on the border but also on the Internet

Indian and Chinese soldiers clashed on the Line of Actual Control in the Tawang sector of Arunachal Pradesh on 9 December. The infiltration action on the borders often continues from the Chinese side. Along with this, this country of the dragon has also been carrying out cyber attacks to stop the internet system in India. Recently the server of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences- AIIMS was hacked. It was revealed in the investigation that this was a conspiracy by China. He had put the data of important people of this institute on the dark web.

Seeing this arrogance of China, India has also become alert. To counter such cyber attacks, it has issued a Standard Operating Protocol-SOP (Standard Operating Protocol-SOP) for the employees of its Ministries and Public Sector Units (PSUs). An order for disciplinary action has also been issued against the employees who do not follow this. After all, what is this SOP, and what was the need to issue it, we will talk about it here.

What is SOP?

Standard Operating Protocol means standard or recognized ways of doing something. India, which is constantly facing cyber attacks from China, has issued this SOP regarding the correct or standard methods of using the internet and computers. The Central Government has taken such steps to strengthen its stand and for strict monitoring to avoid major losses.

Under this, the government has asked its employees in various ministries and public sector units (PSUs) to follow a standard operating protocol (SOP). In this, it has been asked to keep in mind the basic IT laws. This includes shutting down computers after use by employees, signing out emails, and updating passwords from time to time.

Employees may face disciplinary action for ignoring these protocols. According to media reports quoting official sources, it has been revealed that the main reason for the cyber attack on AIIMS was the result of an employee being negligent in taking such precautions here.

According to a source in AIIMS, employees often do not shut down their computers or sign out of their email accounts. It is feared that because of this, hackers got a chance to attack the server of AIIMS. Although now the server of AIIMS has been fixed.

Cyber attacks are on the rise

Recently there has been an increase in major cyber attacks. However, the Indian authorities were able to prevent such attacks on the power grid and banking system. Despite this, the hackers managed to breach the cyber security of the AIIMS system. According to sources, most of these attacks can be traced to Chinese hackers, who often use Indians' computers for these attacks. These Chinese hackers work as sleeper cells.

By sleeper cell, it meant such a group of spies who do not know each other even after living in a city. These happen among common people only, but it is difficult to know them. They do not come into action until their handler gives them a deadline to attack. In a way, they remain in sleeping mode till they order to execute the attack.

The Government of India was also keeping an eye on such sleeper sales from its side. If sources are to be believed, the home ministry, communications and IT ministries, and the National Security Council Secretariat were keeping a close eye on such developments and were trying to ensure that vulnerabilities were addressed.

The frequency of such attacks has increased in recent months, with the Central Depository Services Limited (CDSL) being one of the agencies that suspected the presence of malware in some computers, although the depository maintains that the data was not compromised. Malware is such computer software that enters the user's data by accessing the user's computer system in the wrong ways through the network.

A report by the Government of India's Indian Computer Emergency Response Team- CERT-IN (CERT-IN) has predicted a 51 percent rise in ransomware incidents during the first half of 2022. While most of the attacks are targeted at data centers, the IT sector and Critical infrastructure including manufacturing and finance, oil and gas, transportation, and electricity were also impacted.

Ransomware is such a cyber attack whose effect can be seen in some corners of the world. It is a kind of virus that makes access your computer system through any file and encrypts all the files. This type of virus is used by hackers or sleeper cells and then they demand ransom in exchange for data and access. This ransomware virus changes its form every time, so it is difficult to fix it through a secure system.

According to a Google report, India ranks sixth in the list of 140 countries most affected by ransomware in the last year and a half. Israel ranks first with an increase of almost 600 percent. According to Google's report, it has analyzed more than 80 million ransomware samples collected in the last year and a half and it is clear that the attacks are still happening.

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