KARACHI: As Pakistan ranked at 67th position on Global Cyber Security Index of year 2017 compiled by International Telecommunication Union as compared to 23rd position of India, much work need to be done to completely safeguard and secure the use of digital means and technologies for private, business, state-level communications in the country. Speakers of a symposium titled ‘Cyber security-Where do we stand?’ organised by the Pakistan Academy of Engineering (PAS) stated this in a moot on cyber security on Wednesday. Speakers of the moot being academicians and professionals of IT and computer systems securities suggested that establishment of a national cyber security command could be one effective mechanism to safeguard digital and computer-based information systems and communications in the country. “This cyber security command will also work as the much-needed state level regulatory body to control entire affairs related to cyber communications and systems in the country.” Speakers said that hackers allegedly belonging to hostile countries in recent past had launched cyber attacks on websites related to government services in Pakistan as in several such attacks, the websites of government’s agencies were either completely taken down, their content distorted, or virtually hijacked by unidentified attackers in the cyber world. They said that in such a situation, the government had to beef up and completely secure its own IT and computer systems, servers, and database to safeguard the record pertaining to different state and government-level services. They suggested that regional cooperation among nearby countries was a key to adopt a uniform legislative network across the region for securing IT systems and networks. In such a situation the member states included in South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation (SAARC) should come together for increasing reliance on each other for uniform system of cyber security in the entire SAARC much like the cooperation forged among the European Union nations. PAS President Prof Dr Jameel Ahmed Khan said that engineering universities in the country should introduce the course of “Cyber security” at the undergraduate level as this would be helpful in overcoming acute shortage of IT security specialists. Dr Khan, who has also served as the vice chancellor of the NED University of Engineering and Technology, said that a big public sector engineering varsity like NED University should undertake an assessment of their own IT systems and computers servers to safeguard important academic, examination, and research data of students. In his keynote address via a video link, Canada-based cyber security expert Mobeet Khan said that there was a global need to install well in place security systems for protection of IT servers related to banking, financial, health care, municipal systems and public-oriented government services. He said that cyber security had become an important subject as governments had increased their reliance on online services for handling matters related to governance issues in the domain of masses. Hussaein Hasanali, chief information security officer at a private bank, said that public and private sector institutions should forge an alliance to heavily invest in human resource development and training in the field of IT security and management to meet fast changing trends in the field of IT security and systems. He said that in case the present dismal trend of training continued, top-level IT security positions in the private sector of the country would remain vacant owing to shortage of qualified professionals of computer systems field. Wajahat Raja, Dr Jawwad A Shamsi, Dr Fahad Samad and Dr Asad Arfeen being IT experts and academicians, also spoke on the occasion. Published in Daily Times, December 28th 2017.