Cybersecurity Threats are Increasing
Since the start of the pandemic, cybersecurity threats have begun to increase at a very high rate, a rate that has never been seen before. One of the reasons why this happened is because of COVID, the work environments for many people across the world changed and more & more employees started to work from home, which also included government employees who also started working from homes. Cyberattackers took advantage of this situation where the people are working from their homes and started to attack the system of the employees to gain access to the government system. These cyberattacks are not done by any random individual sitting in his basement, trying to make some bucks but these are actively backed by governments against other governments. These cyberattacks became very lethal in the past year or so and have led to disruption of utilities, loss of information, and also national security concerns. When a cyberattacker is successfully able to strike at a major government organization and breach into its system then it not only means big money for him but if the news of a cyberattack on a government organization goes viral, the financial and reputational consequences are beyond comparable. Over the span of the next few years, the number of cyberattacks on government organizations and systems will increase drastically and it can lead to many problems such as loss of productivity, theft of intellectual property, fraud, government disruption, and hacked data unless the governments around the world understand the importance of cybersecurity and invest in it.
The intensity of Cyber Threats is also Increasing
As mentioned, the cyberattacks are increasing with each passing day but it is not just the number of cyberattacks that are growing, the cyberattacks are also increasing in intensity. They are becoming more and more destructive and catastrophic as each day passes by. It is not only the government organizations that are at risk but in the Election of 2016, it became one of the biggest talking points of the elections. And it is not just government organizations or politicians who are at risk, almost everyone is vulnerable to cyberattacks nowadays. In 2018, the Chief of Homeland Security said that cybersecurity was the biggest threat that the company faced and in that same year, the government of the US released a defense policy bill that was focused on cybersecurity and called for stronger security measures against cyberattacks. People in the private sector have understood the importance of cybersecurity and what would be the consequences if they didn’t pay much heed to cybersecurity. So, they have started making investments of billions of dollars in cybersecurity every year. This is also sound for many governments around the world and they are doing their best to improve their cybersecurity and those who aren’t making efforts to improve their cybersecurity will definitely face devastating consequences.
Is Cybersecurity Important for Governments?
The answer to the question of whether cybersecurity is important for governments or not is YES! There is no doubt in how important cybersecurity has become since most countries are shifting towards digitalization and trying to make most of their services digitally available for their citizens. Let’s take the example of India, the government announced the digitization program a few years ago in the country, and since then, it made many services such as PM Kisan, SSY, PMJAY, etc digitally available for the citizens and it is a good initiative by the government to help the citizens but with this also comes the risk of cyberattacks and potential data loss, which can be very devastating for the government. The private sector is investing billions of dollars every year in cybersecurity because they know its importance and what would be the consequences if they don’t make their cybersecurity strong enough. Governments around the world have realized this and are making investments in cybersecurity to strengthen it and prevent any unforeseen consequence from occurring. Last year, a ransomware infected the flow of gas in certain parts of the United States to a stop and the result was that the gas prices skyrocketed and there were people all over that area hoarding gasoline. There was fear, frustration, and panic among the citizens. It was an unprecedented situation that was all because of weak cybersecurity and potential threats in it which led to the whole system being infected by the ransomware.
Conclusion
Cybersecurity has become a must for governments in the age of digitalization and if the governments don’t realize its importance and take immediate steps to strengthen their cybersecurity and improve security awareness then the consequences and results for the governments would be catastrophic and devastating.
