West Asia crisis: India on guard amid growing cyber threat

As the war between the US-Israel and Iran entered the fifth week on Saturday, with both the contesting parties sustaining significant attrition of weapons stockpile, and the international terror group Al Qaeda jumping into the West Asian conflict by declaring “global cyber jihad” against countries including India, the possibility of cyber hits against Indian installations has heightened.

Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), spearheading the war front with the US-Israel, has a precedent of downing a passenger aircraft of Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 “mistakenly” on January 8, 2020, killing all 176 people on board. The incident occurred soon after Iran launched missile strikes against US forces in Iraq in retaliation for the assassination of IRGC General Qasem Soleimani by the American forces.

In the wake of heightened threat, India has so far issued broader advisories to the airlines to operate only in open airspace and not for any specific precautions against on-ground or in-air flight operations by Indian airlines. Amid the West Asian conflict, at least one Indian international flight had to return following a software malfunction. Chatter emerging from Iran, all entities with linkages to the US and Israel’s defence supply chains are “legitimate” targets for cyber hits.

Intelligence assessments suggest Iranian hacking groups could not only conduct cyber hits against Indian installations with US defence supply chain linkages, but even American and Pakistani hackers can target India in the disguise of Iranian hackers.

According to military theory on war escalation, cyber-attacks increase in geopolitical situations undergoing sustained conflict. Analysts monitoring the conflict said the Indian Airlines owned by the Tatas, part of the US defence supply chain, could be a possible target of Iranian hacking groups, causing flight disruption. Hackers’ groups are already on the offensive to sway flight operations. The Tata group is engaged in the production of certain critical equipment for the American fighter jet F-16, including cockpit and ejection suites.

Al Qaeda, in a statement, said, “We call upon the believing men and women to join our ranks and participate in global Cyber Jihad against the American, Israeli, Pakistani, Indian and Arab Governments and to inflict financial loss and cyber disruptions against their Governments, financial institutions, Government businesses and agencies worldwide.”

It added: “We announce our entrance into the Iranian-American war and the Afghanistan-Pakistan war. We will give cyber assistance to the Mujahideen of the Pakistani Taliban and the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan and launch major-scale cyber offensives against their enemies. We will also take the opportunity of the Iranian — American war by joining Pro-Iranian hacker movements and groups in their fight against the United States and Israel…”

Al Qaeda’s affiliate, Harkat-ul Mujahideen and Jaish-e-Mohammad, have a track record of hijacking the Indian Airlines flight IC 813 from Kathmandu with 190 occupants in 1999, including one casualty. Indian Airlines was then operated by the Centre.

While there is no specific advisory against cyber threats, information in the open domain revealed that Indian Airlines flights are available to three destinations in the UAE, and the capitals of Oman and Qatar are already facing the brunt of the US-Israel-Iran conflict.