India to lead draft plan for cybersecurity in BIMSTEC: Official

India will lead a project to draft a five-year plan for combating cybersecurity challenges in member countries of the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC), a senior official said on Friday.

The announcement came on the last day of a conference organised in the capital by the National Security Council Secretariat of India (NSCS), attended by officials from all member countries — Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Thailand.

The five-year plan, which will be given final approval by national security advisors of all seven member countries over the next couple of months, includes cooperation with the emergency response teams, joint cybersecurity exercises, sharing of threat intelligence, and a common understanding of international reforms in the area.

“We are seven neighbours around the Bay of Bengal and after discussions, we found that we were facing similar problems of cybercrime, fake news, ransomware etc. Since India has vast experience in this field, we decided to take the lead and have identified seven pillars of cooperation over the next five years. BIMSTEC is a most successful regional cooperation forum,” NSCS chief, Lt General Rajesh Pant, told HT.