Cyber Warfare Between Pakistan and India: Implications for the Region

In this article, the authors point out the history between India and Pakistan and look at their relationship through a cyber lens. They note that while India has a huge defense and cyber budget, Pakistan has not invested nearly enough money nor technological advancement into their cyber force. As such, India has played more of an offensive role in cyber-attacks by investing money into military agencies while Pakistan has taken the defensive side, using legislature and smaller hacker groups as their attempt to fight back. Most of these Pakistani hacker groups are independent, meaning that the government cannot truly control them when needed– rather they must hope that the goals of the hacker groups will match federal interests. Indian hacker groups, on the other hand, are more regulated with government interests and align value-wise with nationalist goals. When they cyber-attack each other, both the hacking groups and governments use advanced persistent threats (APTs), such as phishing and fake apps. However, the authors are careful to warn that while these actions seem small, they have dangerous implications. New malware that stems from the same premise of APTs can be turned into cyber weapons, which is what Indian hackers are developing. While Pakistan is behind in development for cyber weapons, India’s capabilities has also opened them to a series of attacks from China, who see India as a cyber threat. The authors end by offering guidelines to Pakistan to boost their cyber defense and warfare– beginning by recruiting youth, developing more cyber policies, and increasing incentives for the private cyber sphere to collaborate with the Pakistani government.