‘Dynamite to Metaverse, Hawala to Crypto’: Amit Shah & Rajeev Chandrasekhar open G20 meet on cybersecurity

Union Home Minister Amit Shah inaugurated the G20 conference on ‘Crime and Security in the Age of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Metaverse’ at Gurugram, Haryana. During his speech at the opening session, Home Minister Shah emphasized the significance of multilateral collaboration in effectively safeguarding nations against evolving cyber threats. IT Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar, spoke at the inauguration as well.

In his inaugural speech, Home Minister Amit Shah issued a warning to the global community regarding the security challenges that have transformed from traditional threats like “dynamite to metaverse” and “hawala to cryptocurrency.” He called upon the G20 nations to transcend conventional boundaries and take action against such crimes.

The Home Minister expressed deep concerns about several cybercrime trends such as ransomware, phishing, offline telecom, offline child sexual abuse, and hacking. He highlighted that these trends pose a significant global threat, as outlined in Interpol’s 2022 Global Trends Summary report, and cautioned that there is a high possibility of a manifold increase in cybercrime in the future

“According to Interpol’s 2022 Global Trends Summary report, some of the cybercrime trends such as ransomware, phishing, offline telecom, offline child sexual abuse and hacking are posing a serious threat globally. There is a possibility that this cybercrime will increase manifold in future," he said.

These activities have far-reaching implications for national security, law and order, and the economy, making them a matter of great concern. He emphasized the need to transcend conventional geographic boundaries in order to effectively combat such crimes and criminals. To address cyber criminals operating across borders, the Home Minister proposed several measures, including the establishment of uniform laws across all countries, the development of response mechanisms under various legal frameworks, the harmonisation of benchmarks, best practices, and regulations, and enhanced coordination among cyber agencies globally.

He also highlighted the need to adopt an integrated and stable approach to cyber security policies that would promote interoperability, build trust in information sharing, and bridge gaps in agency protocols and resources. Home Minister Shah emphasized the importance of sharing real-time cyber threat intelligence among member countries, with active support from industry and academia, to safeguard critical national infrastructure.

The Home Minister further stated that while technology has positively brought people, communities, and countries closer, there are also negative elements and global forces exploiting technology to cause economic and social harm to both citizens and governments. He stressed the need for a balanced internet vision that avoids excessive freedom that threatens national existence as well as isolationist structures like digital firewalls.

Meanwhile, IT Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar, spoke of the need to have continuous conversation and cooperation among nations to tackle modern-day cyber threats.

“Today we are a nation of 840 million internet users. In a couple of years, we will have 1.2 billion Indians using the internet and becoming digital nagriks. We are living in very interesting times…One of the most interesting aspects of these interesting times is the rapid digitalising of our lives. Governments, enterprises and services, as well as consumer’s lives, are all digitalising fast,” said Minister Chandrasekhar.

“India is a beacon to the world of how the internet has been harnessed to transform decades-old dysfunctional governance into modern, responsive governance, rebuild trust between government and citizens, and generally how technology has been harnessed to do good,” he added.

The IT Minister also highlighted that the positive impact of technology has been evident, but it is important to recognize that in recent years, technology, especially the internet, has also emerged as a source of harm. He further explained that although technology, especially the internet has brought about positive outcomes, it is progressively becoming associated with user harm, toxicity, misinformation, and criminal activities.

“It is important that we understand the growing use of tech and various platforms to cause harm, that we understand, the present and the future of cyberspace, requires the world to corporate and make it more safe and trusted,” added Minister Chandrasekhar.

The minister then spoke on the divergence of cybercrime, victim and jurisdiction. He explained that the internet and technology, in general, operate in a realm where traditional borders hold no significance. Victims may be located in one jurisdiction, while the crime itself occurs in another, and the perpetrator resides in yet another jurisdiction. Therefore conventional law and order systems and responses are ineffective in addressing these issues. Furthermore, the situation is exacerbated by the growing tendency of platforms to promote anonymous usage of their services.

“It is necessary that we have continuous conversations for a framework of regulations, cooperation and partnership between nations, in investigations as well as the development of tools and protocols on how we address the rising challenges and threats,” said the IT minister.