The future of devices will be digital and automated. Around 25-30 billion devices will be connected to the Internet by 2020 (Nordrum 2016) from cars without drivers and industrial control systems to home automation and monitoring devices for health. While increasing use of automated technologies, big data, the Cloud, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Internet of Things (IoT) in many areas of business and society have made life easy, challenges of data protection, information breach, and online crimes have also emerged. Such advancements in the field of technology have also given rise to competition in cyber space between nations, by nation states’ proxy actors and organisations in fulfillment of their political and ideological objectives/manifestos (RAND Corporation n.d.). 

In Pakistan, the state of cyber security remains bleak and compromised due to lack of digital security measures in Information Technology infrastructure. The government, public and private sector have increasingly become vulnerable to new and malicious cyber threats that only few honed minds can understand or predict.  Cyber criminals are constantly in pursuit of making systems vulnerable through malicious means including criminal trespassing, espionage, or digital crimes. This paper will discuss cyber threats to the digitalised sectors of Pakistan such as banking, telecommunication, energy and power, along with existing preparedness and degree of cyber security maturity adopted by the government. In addition, the paper will offer policy recommendations to the government and the military for improving the country’s existing cyber security framework.  

References

Nordrum, A. 2016, ‘Popular Internet of Things Forecast of 50 Billion Devices by 2020 Is Outdated,’ 18 August, IEEE Spectrum,

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RAND Corporation n.d. ‘Challenges and Opportunities in Cyberspace,’ 

, accessed 18 August 2019.