With a population of 1.4 billion people, India is the world’s largest and most diverse democracy.

As such, to keep the Indian people secure within cyberspace and all other domains is of paramount importance. If India’s cybersecurity is endangered, that sets an alarming precedent for the ability of cyber-related threats to undermine democratic processes, national resilience, and e-governance of states around the world. Conversely, if the creativity and cyber expertise of the Indian people can be channelled into developing India’s cybersecurity capabilities, that in turn may serve as an aspirational precedent for other states. This report is part of the IndoDutch Cybersecurity School 2022 (IDCSS22).8 Its goal was to contribute to this endeavour with educational and professional lectures that were provided for both Indian and Dutch students and young professionals in the field of cybersecurity.

Beyond the immediate context of a healthy democratic discourse, cybersecurity has vast implications across all other fields of national resilience. India is currently undergoing efforts to digitise its economy and infrastructure. Initiatives such as Digital India (DI) aspire to link all Indian citizens into the cyber domain. Consequently, the number of users to be safeguarded by securitisation of the cyber domain is rising rapidly. To become an economically developed digital nation, India must therefore also adopt a holistic approach in tackling challenges to its cybersecurity. Moreover, when it comes to India’s geopolitical strategic posture, the cyber domain provides much surface area for malicious foreign actors to attack India.

The urgency of boosting the resilience of India in the cyber domain is mounting. The sobering return of great power competition to the forefront of international relations discourse only exacerbates the threats posed by revisionist powers such as Russia and China in the cyber domain. Cyberspace has become an arena for unwelcome foreign influence on democratic processes and social discourse in liberal democracies. ‘Big Data’ companies and their corresponding social media platforms now serve as drivers and forums of social and political discourse in modern democracies. Social media platforms’ allocation of users into consumer avatars based on their online footprints is often exploited by companies themselves, bad-faith domestic, and foreign actors who seek to radicalise online discourse, thereby deepening communities’ sense of disillusionment and alienation. The Cambridge Analytica controversy around the Brexit referendum, or the role of Russia-adjacent social media accounts in the rising prominence of populism in liberal democracies both illustrate the magnitude of potential dangers in cyberspace.