Bangladesh Mobile Phone Consumers’ Association-BMPCA, an organization working on consumer rights, feels that it is important to have a commitment in the manifesto for the political parties in the upcoming 12th National Parliament election to prevent cyber security and misuse of technology. In a statement sent to the media on Sunday, the president of the organization, Mohiuddin Ahmed, said that the 12th parliamentary elections are going to be held in the country on January 7. Various political parties have already published their election manifestos. Within 2-4 days all the political parties will publish their election manifestos. Along with the challenge of implementing the fourth and fifth industrial revolution in the coming days, cyber security will be the biggest challenge for the government.
He added, “We have already noticed that several political parties have released their election manifestos that do not mention any commitment to implement the fourth or fifth industrial revolution or any plan to ensure cyber security.” But in the coming days terrorist attacks or terrorism will be carried out through cyberattacks. We must not have forgotten about the million US dollars stolen from Bangladesh Bank by hackers on February 5, 2016.
According to Mohiuddin Ahmed, the fifth industrial revolution has already been announced before the fourth industrial revolution has been completed. As we know, from 1760 to 1840 was the first industrial revolution where the steam engine was one of the sources of this industrial revolution. The second industrial revolution started with electricity-based mass production. The Third Industrial Revolution began with the discovery of semiconductors in the 1860s. And at present, the journey of the fourth industrial revolution has started through technological development. Industry-wide standard development through high-speed Internet edge connectivity has accelerated the implementation of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
‘The announcement of the fifth industrial revolution has already begun. Where citizens coordinate with the ongoing evolution of the internet along with machine intelligence to reach the highest levels of productivity. However, implementation of green technology will be a big challenge. In the future, artificial intelligence, especially generative AI, will play a more extensive role in automating the day of death’ – he added.
BMPCA President thinks that cyber security will be a big challenge for our country and government along with the implementation of fifth industrial revolution in the coming days. This challenge will be faced by those who will be elected in Parliament to represent and implement the government that will be elected. Therefore, political parties should play a major role in the manifesto besides presenting detailed information and tools in this regard.
According to information from the Ministry of Information Technology, the number of cyberattacks in Bangladesh in 2016 was 389. The following year in 2017 this number increased to 683 and in 2018 the number of cyberattacks reached 870. According to these statistics, the number of cyberattacks in Bangladesh is increasing at a rate of almost double every year. Meanwhile, on August 15, an Indian hacker group threatened to bring a big storm of cyberattacks to Bangladesh. Also, in the outgoing year, several financial institutions including bank insurance and even mobile operators were victims of cyberattacks. National repositories of citizens’ information floated publicly, warning from the United States.