The plan to build Digital Bangladesh by 2021, which is known as “Vision 2021” was first included at the election manifesto of Bangladesh Awami League at ninth Bangladesh general election that was held on December 29, 2008. With proper steps taken by the government, we can proudly say that we are in the Digital Bangladesh now. If we look at different sectors of Bangladesh, we can easily realize the great impacts of Digital Bangladesh. Digital Bangladesh creates great opportunities for our people, mainly for our young generation. Being in Digital Bangladesh, at present all most all the contents are available online and the largest portion of the citizens are accessing these contents for different purpose. We are also taking the initiatives of smart cities and smart villages. These will also ensure more connectivity via online platforms. Definitely these will provide more benefits to our citizens in coming days.
From the last several years we are celebrating “Digital Bangladesh Day” on December 12 to make citizens more aware about the services and benefits of Digital Bangladesh. This year we are going to celebrate 4th “Digital Bangladesh Day”. Definitely this is a great initiative. People are becoming more smart in enjoying the services of Digital Bangladesh. In this Digital Bangladesh, young generation can easily learn different frontier technologies and can focus on research and innovation to prepare them f0r global job markets. Our young generation already created a significant impact in global job markets and it is increasing day by day.
To get more benefits of Digital Bangladesh in coming days, we must have to take all necessary measures for the sustainability of Digital Bangladesh as there are many threats for making Digital Bangladesh sustainable. This is due to different security related issues. Cyberspace is always a prone to different attacks as cyber-attacks can be initiated from anywhere irrespective of geographical boundaries. If we give a look about the cyber-attacks around the globe in recent past, we can see that the types and patterns of attacks in cyberspace are changing rapidly and the number of attacks is increasing day-by-day. The world already faced different types of cyber-attacks such as malware attacks, eavesdropping attacks, cross-site scripting attacks, web attacks, DNS spoofing attacks, SQL injunction attacks, DoS and DDoS attacks, phishing attacks, password attacks, ransomware attacks etc. Unfortunately, developing countries like Bangladesh are highly vulnerable to cyber-attacks. So, we must have to take proper steps to protect digital services, personal data from different attacks. We must have enough manpower to fight against cybercrimes, cyber crisis management and cyber incidents response. Unfortunately, till now in National Cyber Security Index (NCSI) Bangladesh is not at a good position (available at: https://ncsi.ega.ee/). This is due to the lack of proper policy and efforts to ensure secure and safe use of cyberspace. We must have to take following initiatives immediately to make cyberspace secure for the sustainability of Digital Bangladesh.
Policy Development and Threat Analysis
NCSI does not reflect that we have very good cyber security policy. We are still very weak in developing security strategy and its implementation. In addition, we have not enough resources to perform prior analysis of threats to make our cyber space safe. Our websites and web portals need to be tested properly before deployment. Before purchasing any software, there should be strong security guidelines that must be ensured by the software. We need to involve experts from different stakeholders such as university faculties, government officials, and industry people in policy development and implementation.
Professional Development
Unfortunately in our ICT related curriculum, there is not sufficient coverage of security related issues. Even there is not enough training facilities to develop professionals as experts to deal with cyber security related issues. In our universities, we need to open cyber security related departments and the contents should be sufficient enough to fulfil industry demands. From the government side, it is necessary to open some specialized training institutes to arrange quality training on cyber security.
Ensuring Auditing of Infrastructures
We must ensure auditing of the cyber infrastructures of the organizations on regular basis. There should be very strong body to check the audit reports and provide necessary guidelines to enhance the infrastructure such as hardware, software, security policies etc. The body also needs to ensure the adaptation or up gradation according to the suggestions. Unfortunately, according to my knowledge, till now there is no well-established guideline in this regard. We should take immediate action in this regard so that everyone, even the owner of a simple webpage must have to complete the auditing of his webpage in timely basis. All non-audited cyber infrastructures must be blocked until they complete the auditing.
Establishing Expert Response Cell
In addition, we must ensure that there must be an expert response team / cell in each organization. This cell should include forensic, legal, IT, HR, operations, communications, investor relations staff, and management experts. This team will be in charge of dealing with any cyber security related issues such as internal auditing as well as actions taken aftermath of a breach. Any company / organization will not be eligible to do ICT related tasks if the company / organization do not have an expert response cell.
Increasing Awareness among General Citizens
Nowadays, most of the citizens are using online services and social networks. So, we need to train our general people about the safe use of online services and social networks so that they are well aware about accidental exposure of confidential data. In most of the cases, due to the mistakes or curious visits at different contents of the cyberspace, users as well as the systems become vulnerable due to different attacks. We should broadcast early warning for the general people if the experts can know / predict any upcoming attacks. We can use different media to aware people for this purpose.
Overseas Collaboration
Cyber-attacks can be originated from anywhere in the world. So, it is mandatory to have collaborations among different countries so that the attacks can be prevented as well as actions can be taken if some attacks occur. Most of the time we come to know that the attacks originated at overseas countries and we say that we have very little things to take any legal actions against the attackers as they reside in foreign countries. Overseas collaborations will definitely help us in such circumstances. At least we need to form a cyber-security consortium at the regional level considering our neighboring countries.
Finally, we can feel pride that we are in the Digital Bangladesh and on the way to Developed Bangladesh. For achieving the goals of Developed Bangladesh i.e. Bongobondhu’s Sonar Bangla, we must ensure the sustainability of Digital Bangladesh. For the sustainability of Digital Bangladesh, we must have to take adequate policies so that our cyber space is secure enough to handle all types of attacks and threats as soon as possible. Now, we have a stable situation in Bangladesh and we have a visionary government in power. Considering the slogan- “Sustainability of Digital Bangladesh for Developed Bangladesh”; lets we all work together from our own positions to fulfil the dream of Bongobondhu’s Sonar Bangla far before 2041.
