In 2013 more than dozens of government websites are hacked by hackers’ communities. As per information, most of the hackings are done from Saudi Arabian territory. A number of these hackings included displaying messages regarding scolding Nepal and Nepalese people on the victim websites. The aim of those hackings and the locations from where these hackings are being done are officially unknown yet.
Hacker is someone who seeks and exploits weaknesses in a computer system or computer network. Hackers may be motivated by a multitude of reasons, such as profit, protest, or challenge. According to the nature of the activities they perform, hackers are of different types. Some hackers are called black hackers who always try to break the secrete plan and/or strategy, information and also try to break the physical system. Some hackers hack to learn flaws and to find loopholes in the system. Those hackers will not break or alter system information; known as white hackers. Gray hackers hack the system to make money by selling the flaws and loopholes of the system.
Big fish always try to eat small fish, similarly, big nations always want to rule the smaller ones. Nowadays many countries are being involved to steal information, patent, and secrete stuff from other countries. The major reason behind this is either to make money or to impose power over other nations which is one of the potential causes for the world war. In recent years, the means of international war has been shifted from conventional weapons to cyberspace which is usually termed as cyber warfare. Cyberwarfare includes a wide variety of activities including breaking and/or damaging nuclear plants, military strategies, communication networks, government strategies, and policies of other countries. For this purpose, a number of the countries are training to prepare hackers who are paid a large sum of money and provided with high facilities. These pieces of training are claimed to be going on secretly by various sources.
Many countries including the USA, China, South Korea, North Korea, Pakistan, India, and others established cyber military in their military organizations for preparing for cyber warfare. These nations try to know the capability and vulnerable areas of other nations’ systems and networks. Most of the countries are victims of cybercrime and are being involved in cyber warfare knowingly or unknowingly. That’s why the internal information and strategy of these countries are prone to leakage. A country can be involved in cyber warfare knowingly to extract secreted information of the other countries, their plans, and strategies or to make a safe and secure system from the other countries’ attackers. Unknowingly many countries are participating in cyber warfare as they are being used as a route to attack third countries.
India’s security experts claimed that Pakistan is also preparing different groups of hackers in their army and they aim to attack India for extracting military strategy, national policy and to damage their national communication network and electricity network. American security agencies claim that China is also preparing the PLA(Peoples’ Liberation Army) with special skills of hacking to attack other countries and they are also trying to enter the US network to break government and military strategies and communication satellites and to damage the nuclear plants. Most recently, the war between North and South Korea has been shifted to war in cyberspace. North Korea has infected South Korea’s government network and computer systems containing worthy information.
In these contexts of global cyber warfare, the role of Nepal seems important as it is located in the middle of India and China, which are actively participating in warfare with each other. Any of these two giant countries might target Nepal to use it as a route to attack the other. Nepal is rapidly growing in the field of information and technology. The government is planning to use technology for easy and transparent services. Nepal is in the early phase of introducing information and communication technology. In a very few sectors, these technologies are implemented and in a lot of sectors, these implementations are either in the planning phase or in the inception phase. So Nepal has the potential to become a partner of cyber warfare knowingly or unknowingly. For both of these, Nepal has to be aware and make necessary preparations in security from this very early stage.
Nepal has been being used as a route for other target countries. Attackers from other countries can go to other countries’ networks through the help of Nepal’s network. So Nepal may be unknowingly participating in the warfare to harm other countries’ networks. In 2011, one of the most popular Nepali daily newspapers had been hacked by the Pakistani hacker group possibly a member of the Pakistani Cyber Army. In this attack, it is said that the server of the newspaper is hosted in India and they try to enter this network. It is not mentioned whether the attackers achieved their target or not.
Another potential concern for Nepal is being a direct victim rather than being a medium of warfare. Important information can be broken. Due to the lack of secure networks in a lot of sectors, information and financial leakages are potential damages that can be done to Nepal by hackers’ communities abroad. To defend against these potential attacks, Nepal should now start focusing concern on the security of systems and networks. ICT services being used should be secure and trusted for a transparent, easy, and fast transaction that should be the main motto of ICT integration in services. These features can be offered only via secure systems so that the general public who are the consumers of these features will have the feel of reliable government. Financial sectors like banks and insurance companies, if attacked, have the change of financial loss. One of the commercial banks in Nepal is attacked multiple times by Turkish hackers. The major effect of these attacks was that whenever the website of this bank was tried to access, it was automatically redirected to their (the hackers’) website. Though claims have been made about no financial losses through those attacks.
Besides these two potential roles of Nepal (i.e. being a mediator and being a victim) there is another potential role of being attacker itself. Whenever a cyber attack is made on Nepal, the first step is to take defensive approaches. As far as war is concerned, one can’t always stay defending the attacks. In such scenario, the third role can be played i.e. being an attacker in the warfare. Like other countries, Nepal can also prepare and train a cyber army for the purpose of attacking back while in warfare if some possible attacks are made by other countries. It is obvious that Nepal should be in the position to make, if not best, then at least some good use of the information extracted from these attacks.
In recent years, Banks, Government offices, private organizations, the military are getting benefited from ICT. To make these ICT systems fully dependent, each and every loophole should be made secure and trusted. Currently, a lot of countries around the globe are participating in cyber warfare. In this context, countries like Nepal should do proper homework regarding their strategies and policies towards cyber warfare. In overall, the role of each country can be offensive or defensive. Offensive countries try to attack for information leakage and conduct sabotage and espionage on other countries. A lot of countries like the USA, China, Pakistan, Iran, India, South Korea, North Korea, Germany, Vietnam, etc are actively participating to grab cyber power or say they are playing attacking roles. But those countries which can’t attack others and/or can’t take advantage of cyber warfare but are conscious about these activities can make their systems secure from external attacks. In other words, we can say that these countries can play a defensive role. In this context, Nepal has to identify and choose appropriate roles whether to be offensive or defensive. For this, ICT experts around Nepal should be identified and gathered for formulating appropriate policies and security measures and also to define the role of Nepal in cyber warfare. The policy thus formed should address both the offensive and defensive approaches so that Nepal can keep itself safe from warfare and also get the potential benefits of ICT.