In an age of cyber attacks and cyber terrorism, the key challenge to democracies is not just swaying opinion of voters before elections, but protecting the integrity of voting machines.
This was stated by Buky Carmeli, consultant for Central Elections Committee (Israel), as he spoke about emerging cyberspace threats to democracies like Israel and India. “Voting machines, transport and logistics are key targets for cyber warfare. Democracies have to take care that they have a security protocol in place for this eventuality,” said Mr. Carmeli, who was in Hyderabad for a conference on cyber security.
Right to express
“Everyone has an opinion online. They have a right to. But we will step in if the opinion is being manipulated by bots or systems. We will take them out,” said Mr. Carmeli, who recently stepped down as chief National Cyber Security Authority in Israel.
Mr Carmeli, who is credited with creating the framework for cyberspace security for Israel, shared his expertise. “We have a team of over 200 security analysts. How we attract talent is important. A private company may be willing to pay $12,000 to an analyst but the government can pay only $5,000. But analysts see challenge in working for the government and they get leadership roles,” said Mr. Carmeli.
At a time when cyber crime is making news everywhere, Israel is one of the few nations where the offences are rarely heard of. “Cyberspace has created communities that span the globe. In this world, we cannot make one time investment for cyber security. It is an ongoing investment. Only then there is guaranteed immunity against cyber attacks,” said Mr. Carmeli.
Israel has created a single number for triggering cyber attack alerts. “One of the keystones for our communication is media policy. We release information to media quickly so that people can act and install the software patches instead of hearing rumours and going into panic mode,” shared Mr. Carmeli.
Job opportunities
Earlier, B.V.R. Mohan Reddy of Cyient said India should see the threats from cyberspace as an opportunity to create more jobs, scaling up companies and knowledge.
“By 2025, there will be a $35 billion business opportunity for Indian cyber security products and services. It also means we can have 1 million jobs and over 1,000 startups centered around security space. Cyber security is the next big thing,” said Mr. Reddy.
