India's Chief of Defense Staff Gen Bipin Rawat has warned that China is capable of launching cyber attacks against India and that there is a capability gap between the two countries when it comes to technology.
In an address, at the Vivekananda International Foundation recently, he said the "biggest differential" between India and China lies in the field of cyber domain, adding the neighboring country has been able to invest a lot of funds on new technologies.
General Rawat said that a "capability differential" has come between the two countries over the years and that China has a "lead" over India on technology. "We know that China is capable of launching cyber attacks on us and that it can disrupt a large amount of our systems. What we are trying to do is to create a system that would ensure cyber defense," he said.
Mumbai, Tamil Nadu ports came under cyber attack
Tellingly, Times of India reported on March 5 that cyber attacks by RedEcho, the actor group with China links, on India's power infrastructure have been more widespread than previously known and the intrusive infrastructure remains active even after military de-escalation in Ladakh's Pangong area.
According to Christopher Ahlberg, CEO of Recorded Future, the Massachusetts-based enterprise-security outfit that detected the intrusions, 10 Indian power-sector assets and the Mumbai and Tamil Nadu's VO Chidmabaranar ports came under attack.
A New York Times report on February 28 blown the lid off on these intrusions, citing findings by Recorded Future. It raised doubt Chinese hackers may have caused the October 12 power outage in Mumbai as a warning against strong Indian pushback to PLA's border transgressions in Ladakh, the TOI said.
The New York Times
The New York Times reported, "Early last summer, Chinese and Indian troops clashed in a surprise border battle in the remote Galwan Valley, bashing each other to death with rocks and clubs. Four months later and more than 1,500 miles away in Mumbai, India, trains shut down and the stock market closed as the power went out in a city of 20 million people. Hospitals had to switch to emergency generators to keep ventilators running amid a coronavirus outbreak that was among India's worst.
Now, a new study lends weight to the idea that those two events may well have been connected -- as part of a broad Chinese cyber campaign against India's power grid, timed to send a message that if India pressed its claims too hard, the lights could go out across the country. The study shows that as the standoff continued in the Himalayas, taking at least two dozen lives, Chinese malware was flowing into the control systems that manage electric supply across India, along with a high-voltage transmission substation and a coal-fired power plant, according to the New York Times.
Both India and China maintain
medium-size nuclear arsenals, which have traditionally been seen as the
ultimate deterrent. But neither side believes that the other would risk a
nuclear exchange in response to bloody disputes over the Line of Actual
Control, an ill-defined border demarcation where long-running disputes have
escalated into deadly conflicts by increasingly nationalistic governments.
Cyber attacks give them another option less devastating than a nuclear
attack, but capable of giving a country a strategic and psychological edge.
Russia was a pioneer in using this technique when it turned the power off twice
in Ukraine several years ago.
Military experts in India have renewed calls for the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to replace the Chinese-made hardware for India's power sector and its critical rail system, the NYT report said, adding:
"The issue is we still haven't been able to get rid of our dependence on foreign hardware and foreign software," said retired Lt. Gen. D.S. Hooda, a cyber expert who oversaw India's borders with Pakistan and China.
Indian government authorities have said a review is underway of India's information technology contracts, including with Chinese companies. But the reality is that ripping out existing infrastructure is expensive and difficult.
