In a recent high-level meeting, Prime Minister Narendra Modi emphasised to India’s senior bureaucrats the essential necessity of cybersecurity. Highlighting the increasing frequency and severity of cyberattacks, PM Modi raised a simple but critical question: “Do you ensure that you log off from your systems at the end of the day?” This subject becomes even more important when India deals with a slew of cyber disasters, including significant breaches at AIIMS in 2022 and Air India in 2021. The gravity of his message was highlighted today, when a significant technical glitch crippled Microsoft’s Windows systems worldwide, causing considerable turmoil.
Crowdstrike Glitch and Global Windows Outage
Today, a large service disruption affected millions of Windows computer systems worldwide, causing unexpected shutdowns and restarts. Microsoft Inc. has connected the disruption to a recent CrowdStrike update. According to Microsoft’s Service Health Status updates, the early root cause is “a configuration change in a portion of our Azure backend workloads, which caused an interruption between storage and compute resources, resulting in connectivity failures.”
The scale of the outage was unprecedented, affecting industries ranging from airports to banks and even government offices. Reports of Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) issues have increased widely, stopping flights and causing severe delays in hospitals. Major airlines like United, Delta, and American Airlines canceled all flights, while numerous banks and payment providers reported delays and technical concerns.
The State of Cybersecurity in Indian Companies
India has been a top target for cyberattacks. In May 2023, a significant data breach exposed 815 million Indians’ personally identifiable information, which was then sold on the dark web. According to US-based cybersecurity firm Resecurity, the exposed data contained Aadhaar and passport information, as well as names, phone numbers and addresses.
In May 2024, a Pakistani hacking organisation launched a sophisticated cyber espionage campaign against Indian defence officials and state-run defence corporations, potentially compromising vital information. Check Point Software found that Indian businesses saw an average of 1,787 cyberattacks each week during the previous six months, compared to a global average of 983. The most common danger was ransomware, which affected 73% of Indian organisations in 2022, much exceeding the global average of 66 per cent. The most targeted industries were government, education, financial services, and manufacturing.
BharatOS: India’s Response to Cyber Threats
In response to the escalating cybersecurity challenges, India has created and promoted its own operating systems. BharatOS, an Indian GNU/Linux distribution created by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C- DAC), is designed for the country’s digital environment and supports a variety of Indian languages. This effort attempts to bridge the digital divide by making software more accessible in local languages and increasing the use of Free/Open Source Software across India.
Union ministers Dharmendra Pradhan and Ashwini Vaishnaw successfully tested the OS, hailing it as a step towards Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s objective of a “strong, indigenous, and self-reliant digital infrastructure.” Furthermore, domestic mobile device producer Lava plans to deploy an indigenous mobile operating system developed by IIT Madras. The ‘BharOS Service’ is now being supplied to enterprises with high privacy and security requirements, where users handle sensitive information and must communicate confidentially.
India, with its rapidly expanding digital infrastructure and growing internet user base, recognises the critical need to secure its cyberspace. With widespread acceptance of UPI, increased digital identity verification, and the construction of data centres, the country is investing heavily in cybersecurity to enable the growth of new initiatives. Investing in BharatOS adoption campaigns at regional engineering universities and government agencies can help increase cybersecurity awareness and defence against cyber attacks.
In addition to these efforts, India must establish its own digital library of application stores. Government agencies should certify these stores to guarantee they do not engage in phishing efforts or transmit information offshore. This would improve the security and dependability of the digital ecosystem, making it more resistant to cyber assaults.
Conclusion:
The global Windows outage and the increasing number of cyberattacks have highlighted the critical need for strong cybersecurity measures. As India continues to face serious cyber threats, projects such as BharatOS are critical milestones toward digital self-reliance and security. Prime Minister Modi’s emphasis on fundamental cybersecurity principles emphasizes the significance of constant attention and proactive actions in protecting India’s digital infrastructure.
