EFSAS ARTICLE - Cybersecurity Governance in South Asia: India and Pakistan

In the wake of the war in Ukraine, the Council of the European Union has recently highlighted the cyberspace as an “arena for geopolitical competition” (Council of the European Union, 2022) and adopted conclusions on the Union’s cyber posture; and the UN has kicked-off negotiations on a global treaty on cybercrime, a process that was instigated by Russia prior to the beginning of the war in Ukrain. [...] Several agencies and ministries are involved in the management of cybersecurity issues in India, including the Ministry of Home Affairs, the Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, leading to a fragmented approach to cybersecurity by different units within the respective ministries (see Figure 1). [...] In addition to the PECB, Pakistan has adopted its first Digital Pakistan Policy, comprising technological infrastructure and institutional frameworks, in 2017, and 2018 saw the creation of the National Center for Cyber Security in order to bridge academia and industry and foster academic research on the legal framework and processes in the realm of cybersecurity, acknowledging that constant monito. [...] One of the reasons for the absence of a long-term cyber strategy is the lack of prioritization of cybersecurity governance and political instability in the Pakistani context that has halted developments with regard to cyber preparedness. [...] A possible next step for the development of Pakistan’s cybersecurity governance structure is the identification of relevant organizational, technical and legal requirements for the proper implementation of the National Cybersecurity Policy, and the establishment of a designated organization under the government as central entity for cybersecurity-related measures (Shad, 2022).