An ongoing meeting of the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation’s (Bimstec’s) cybersecurity expert group in New Delhi, organised by the National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS) – India’s top cybersecurity office – and chaired by the national cybersecurity coordinator Lt General Rajesh Pant, has been tasked to chalk out a programme for the same.
“India ranks among the top 10 of the Global Cyber Security Index and there is a need to share our expertise with our neighbours in the Bay of Bengal region to ensure they can create safe and secure cyberspace for their citizens. Bimstec is the perfect forum to prove there is strength in unity,” Lt General Pant told The Economic Times on the sidelines of the closed-door event.
Around 15 delegates from Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Thailand are working on the plan, slated to be finalised at the national security advisors’ meeting in Myanmar later this year.
The delegates include officials from cyber police, armed forces of Bimstec member countries, and their consuls dealing with cybersecurity matters.
Sources close to the government told The Economic Times the plan includes setting up a Bimstec computer emergency response team (CERT) by 2025 to deal with “real-time” information sharing on cyberattacks.
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Since existing frameworks of sharing information from other countries on cybersecurity issues are almost non-functional, establishing collaboration between national-level CERTs is imperative, they added.
The action plan, to be implemented over five years, will cover exchange of information on cybersecurity, cybercrime, protection of critical information infrastructure, cyber incident response, and international developments related to cybersecurity norms.
The Delhi conclave follows up on a meeting of Bimstec national security chiefs held in Bangkok in March 2019. During that meeting, the group underscored the importance of recognising the Bay of Bengal region as a common security space and agreed to work out collective strategies on cybersecurity issues.
While the billion-dollar Bangladesh Bank cyber heist of 2016 came up in the discussions at the Delhi meet, cyberattacks by China were not part of the agenda, sources said.
