How Educational Institutions can Help in Cyber Security

Initially, there were three dimensions of war, i.e. Land, Air and Sea. With the advent of advanced technology, the dimensions of war had expanded, and new dimensions have been created. Two more dimensions came into existence that is not yet fully operationalised in practice but is considered to be a platform for future wars. The other two dimensions are Space and Information.

Space Dimension:

Space has become an indispensable part of the modern era. Space technologies are used in the present day for various purposes like imaging, sensing, surveillance, military operations and many other ways. Major countries in the world are focusing to occupy the major portions of the space to utilize it in the best possible way. Space technologies are also used in the day to day life by the people and therefore is subject to data mishandling and misuse. The satellites that are operated by the organizations be it government or private are subjected to cyber threats. The Cyber threats involve losing the space enabled capabilities. Nowadays, the terrorist networks have become smart enough to intrude into the space technologies through hacking the communication network and to utilize it for the extremist purposes. There are also some rogue states that may involve in the malpractice and may arise several unique security challenges. The data fetched from the space satellites can also be used by the influential personalities for their own beneficial purposes.

Information Dimension:

Information Dimension is the fifth dimension of warfare where the internet communication is used as a medium of propaganda. At the present time also, the terrorist network across the world is using this dimension in the form of social media to instigate the youth to join the terrorist organizations like Islamic State. What the problem lies with this dimension is that it is out of the exclusive control of the security agencies and a lot of work need to be done in this regard. Also, another aspect of this dimension is the hacking and interception. There is news regarding the interception of one country delegates by the host country. Also, there is an instance of hacking the government sites and the sites of private companies. This puts the confidential and security-related data on the stake and may cause a very serious harm to a whole nation that can not be quantified.

Role of Educational Institutions:

To stop the menace of the cyber threats, it is essential for an individual nation to train their people with technologies that can counter the menace of cyber attacks. The skills needed to be imparted to the students of the educational institutions and made them practice the counter cyber attacks. For the same purpose, the institutions can organize workshops, competitions and seminars for the students and can also encourage the students to develop the interest in the field. For instance, recently a BITS Pilani student had won the Global Capture the Flag Cyber Challenge that was under Global Conference on Cyber Space.

The winners of the same will get an Internship opportunity with Government of India that will help the students frame a good career in this field and will get the chance to employ the solutions at Government of India, Civil Society Organizations and State Governments that will be used to address the problems associated with cyber security.They will also get the help and mentorship from the Internet and Mobile Association of India.

Shreyansh is a writer and blogger who writes Education related content. He believes that educational reformation is inevitable for Human Development and growth.