The cyber attacks have been on the rise over the past few years and India has been on the receiving end of many attacks with many f its websites being defaced. There has always been a debate going on the use of state sponsored attacks to counter these issues. Now it seems that the Indian government has decided to step up its cyber security capabilities with plans to protect critical national infrastructure from a cyber attack and to authorize two agencies to carry out state-sponsored attacks if necessary.

The government’s National Security Council, which is headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, is working out the fine details which would give the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) and National Technical Research Organization (NTRO) the power to carry out unspecified offensive operations.

A study had earlier established that the spread of Stuxnet affected countries like Iran, Indonesia and India. In order to ensure that no such incidents happen again the government is trying to strengthen its cyber space. Although the worm did not appear to have caused any serious damage and was unlikely to have been a deliberately targeted attack, the government is not taking any chances in the future.