To address security issues related to the internet , Senate Committee on Defence and Defence Production organized a policy seminar on “Defending Pakistan Through Cyber Security Strategy” in coordination with Pakistan Information Security Association (PISA) yesterday at Pakistan Institute of Parliamentary Services (PIPS), Islamabad.
Senator Mushahid Hussain, Chairman of Senate Committee on Defence and Defence Production, in his welcoming address, said that the cyber security threat can affect Pakistan’s national defence, security, intelligence, diplomacy, nuclear and missile programme, economy, energy, education, civil aviation as well as industrial and manufacturing units both in the private and public sector. “Cyber security is an issue of paramount importance for Pakistan’s stability and progress.”
Ammar Jaffari, President of Pakistan Information Security Association (PISA) highlighted the importance of National Cyber Security Policy. “As a Global best practice to achieve desired results Pakistan need to have a road map which can only be achieved under a National Cyber Security Policy.” He said.
In the Q&A Session, Senator Farhatullah Babar suggested to form focal ministry or division exclusively to handle cyber security issues. He said laws for data protection should be introduced and in this regard, industry experts have to join hands with Parliamentarians. Senator Mushahid Hussain informed Senate Defence Committee has already taken initiative to form Joint Task Force for Cyber Security having technical support of PISA to present recommendations and situation analysis.
In his concluding speech, Senator Mushahid Hussain thanked the members of Senate Defence Committee and announced the Senate Defence Committee is proposing the following 7-point Action Plan for a Cyber Secure Pakistan:
- Relevant legislation to preserve, protect and promote Pakistan cyber security, drafting for which has already begun. We will presents bills in Parliament for Cyber Security.
- Cyber security threat should be accepted and recognized as new, emerging national security threat by the Government of Pakistan, similar to the threats like terrorism and military aggression.
- Establishing a National Computer Emergency Response Team (PKCERT).
- Establishing a Cyber-Security Task Force with affiliation with Ministry of Defence, Ministry of IT, Ministry of Interior, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Information and our security organizations plus relevant and leading professionals from the private security so that Pakistan can take steps to combat this new emerging threat and formulate Cyber Security Strategy for Pakistan.
- Under the office of the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, an Inter-Services Cyber Command should be established to coordinate cyber security and cyber defence for the Pakistan Armed Forces.
- Within the framework of SAARC, Pakistan should take the initiative to initiate talks among the 8-member states particularly India to establish acceptable norms of behavior in cyber security among the SAARC countries so that these countries are not engaged in cyber warfare against each other. If Pakistan and India can have an agreement not to attack nuclear installations, why not an agreement seeking the prevention of cyber warfare against each other?
- Soon after Eid, the Senate Defence Committee, in cooperation with the Pakistan Information Security Association (PISA), will have a special media workshop to promote awareness among the public and educate opinion leaders on the issue of cyber security.
The seminar was attended by a number of representatives from civil society, government officials, ministries, academia and media as well.
Just an another waste of time done by these people, as nothing is going to happen. We live in a country where no cyber crime law is active.
We as Pakistanis just do this out of habit – Cursing Cursing and Cursing but doing nothing to rectify!
Try to be positive and add some value towards the cause. May be that’s all it takes…
Thanks.
More regulation to spy on us, but legally.
Do you even know what it is about? :)
Wait and see. Everyone who talks about cyber security wants to inspect more packets. Your traffic, mine, everyone’s is suspect.
Also, using encryption makes you stand out.
I am not sure whether to be sad or happy. They are doing so much brainstorming over this and then on the other hand they say they can’t unblock YouTube because they are incapable of blocking specific URLs. It’s like the dumb and the genius are in the same bus and they don’t know whose driving.
Well Saad the thing is that you are putting all under one cap. Blocking / Unblocking may be regulated under some policy which is not in place for the time being and that’s why even ministry is confused about what to do with it! It would not have been the case if there was some kind of policy or SOP present in their books. It’s not their fault anyways. It’s a matter that needed to dealt by the Relevant Policy Makers at least a decade back. We are living in a country with different priority lists – Terrorism, Power crisis, Education, Health and what not – Information Security was no where in the list for who were sitting in the authority chairs before. I am sure you’ll agree with me on this.
Let me highlight a bigger issue what recently made a buzz around – NSA / PRISM – and all similar kind of cyber spying machines activated all over internet who are breaching your, mine and everyone’s privacy openly, in-short breaching the copyrights as if they have no real meanings and no rules!
Forget what had already happened, there needs to be a solid starting point for a cause to be highlighted enough to be taken seriously, right? And PISA has been doing so for last couple of years and this Policy Seminar for Cyber Security didn’t just happened out of blue. There was a lot of awareness being created at all levels specially for the people sitting in authority chairs now to make National Policy. And now there has been some movement started in favor of this which is good! Policy drafting has already been started that I know as a matter of fact.
So now the important point will be the continuity with some pace to get this Policy out there in their Official Law Books as National Policy for Cyber Security so that we could at least be able to fight back and protect National Cyber Grid from any breach and we have some SOPs defined what to do with the case like YouTube. Their shouldn’t be bunch of nut heads decide to block something for any reason but a system in place…
Best of Luck
This Seminar was held almost 6 years back. PP! what have done to u?