Cyber security

Story hook

It is 23 November 2022. At 2:30 AM, the IT staff at All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) New Delhi discover that the hospital's electronic medical records system has stopped responding. By morning, 40 million patient records — including records of the President, Prime Minister, former PMs, central ministers, top judges — are encrypted with ransomware. Five servers paralysed, daily 12,000 OPD patients shifted to manual registration. Critical surgeries postponed.

CERT-In is alerted within hours. Indian Computer Emergency Response Team officers fly down from Delhi NCR cyber-forensics labs. NIA + CBI + Delhi Police + IB join. 2-week siege. The attackers — later identified by CERT-In as Chinese threat-actor groups using a strain similar to Wantok ransomware — demand 200 crore in cryptocurrency. India refuses to pay. By 14 December, manual restoration via offline backups begins. By March 2023, normalcy returns — but the patient data, public servants confess off-record, may have been exfiltrated.

This was the largest cyberattack on Indian public healthcare. The Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) report later noted the incident exposed: (a) poor patch hygiene at AIIMS (Windows servers unpatched 90+ days); (b) absence of network segmentation; (c) failure to follow CERT-In's 28 April 2022 mandatory directions on log retention; (d) lack of cyber insurance + tabletop drills.

India's cyber landscape: CERT-In logged 14.32 lakh cyber security incidents in 2023 (vs 5.42 lakh in 2020 — 2.6x in 3 years). Phishing + ransomware + data breaches + DDoS + APTs — all rising. National Cyber Security Strategy (NCSS 2023 draft) proposes a Rs. 25,000 cr 5-year programme. National Cyber Security Coordinator (NCSC) under PMO since 2014.

For UPSC, cyber security is the fastest-growing GS-III internal- security sub-topic — Mains has asked it in 2017, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023. Prelims asks CERT-In, NCIIPC, IT Act, NCSP 2013 nearly every year.

Why this matters for UPSC

This is a Mains favourite — asked in 2017, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023. Prelims tests CERT-In, NCIIPC, MeitY's roles annually. Interview boards probe NCSP 2013, 2024 strategy update, AIIMS attack lessons, India-China cyber tensions. Cuts across security, economy, governance.