Speakers stress need for establishment of national cyber security command

As Pakistan ranked at 67th position on Global Cyber Security Index of year 2017 compiled by International Telecommunication Union as compared to 23rd position of India, much work has to be done to completely safeguard and secure the use of digital means and technologies for private, business, state-level communications in the country. Speakers of a symposium titled "Cyber security-Where do we stand?" organized by the Pakistan Academy of Engineering stated this on Saturday.
Speakers of the moot being academicians and professionals of IT and computer systems securities suggested that establishment of a national cyber security command could be one effective mechanism to safeguard digital and computer-based information systems and communications in the country. This cyber security command will also work as the much-needed state level regulatory body to control entire affairs related to cyber communications and systems in the country.
The speakers opined that an effective state-level cyber security institution had to be established for adopting a uniform mechanism for securing IT systems against malicious attacks by hackers from within and outside the country. They highlighted that need for such a national cyber security command had become all the more important given the recent incidents of breach in cyber security systems of ATM (automated teller machine) networks of private banks in the country.
The speakers said that hackers allegedly belonging to hostile countries in recent past had launched cyber attacks on websites related to government services in Pakistan as in several such attacks, the websites of government's agencies were either completely taken down, their content distorted, or virtually hijacked by unidentified attackers in the cyber world. They said that in such a situation, the government had to beef up and completely secure its own IT and computer systems, servers, and database to safeguard the record pertaining to different state and government-level services.
They suggested that regional cooperation among nearby countries was essential to adopt a uniform legislative network across the region for securing IT systems and networks. In such a situation the member states included in South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation (SAARC) should come together for increasing reliance on each other for uniform systems of cyber security in the entire SAARC much like the cooperation forged among the European Union nations.
In his welcome address at the symposium, PAS President Prof Dr Jameel Ahmed Khan said it was the strong recommendation of his academy that government should wake up to the dismal situation of cyber security in the country and take necessary steps for protection of digital and IT systems at the state level. According to him, adoption of a comprehensive legislative framework was one very viable option for the government for enhancing the level of cyber security in the country. Dr Khan said that government should also establish an IT certifying agency at the state level to bring uniformity of standards in maintaining IT and digital systems and computers servers across the country. He said that engineering universities in the country should introduce the course of "Cyber security" at the undergraduate level as this would be helpful in overcoming acute shortage of IT security specialists.
Dr Khan, who also served as vice-chancellor of NED University of Engineering & Technology till 1991, said that a big public sector engineering varsity like NED University should undertake an assessment of their own IT systems and computers servers to safeguard important academic, examination, and research data of students. He lamented that major public and private sector universities had no idea at all about their present state of systems of cyber security for safeguarding their servers against malicious attempts of hacking. He expressed remorse that lawmakers in the parliament had no understanding at all about importance of issues like cyber security owing to which successive governments didn't take implement any serious action plan to safeguard servers and IT systems of its own agencies, corporations and ministries. He said that his academy had taken the initiative of establishing an institute of cyber security management to act as a catalyst to beef up IT security systems at the state level.
In his keynote address via a video-link, a Canada-based cyber security expert Mobeet Khan said that there was a global need to install well in place security systems for protection of IT servers related to banking, financial, health care, municipal systems and public-oriented government services. He said that cyber security had become an important subject as governments had increased their reliance on online services for handling matters related to governance issues in the domain of masses.
He said that owing to effective legislation and regulatory framework, the officials in-charge of cyber security systems in private and public institutions in countries like the USA and Canada could be handed down stern punishment lasting up to ten-year imprisonment in case of a serious breach in IT systems and computers servers under their respective control.
Hussein Hassan Ali, chief information security officer at a private bank, said that public and private sector institutions should forge alliance to heavily invest for human resource development and training in the field of IT security and management to meet fast changing trends in the field of IT security and systems. He said that country had been facing an acute shortage of trained professionals in the field of IT security as whosever got a bare minimum level of education of this field easily got highly-paid employment. He said that in case the present dismal trend of training continued, top-level IT security positions in the private sector of the country would remain vacant owing to shortage of qualified professionals of computer systems field.
Wajahat Raja, Dr Jawwad A Shamsi, Dr Fahad Samad and Dr. Asad Arfeen being IT experts and academicians, also spoke on the occasion.