Indian Army indigenously develops end-to-end secure mobile ecosystem SAMBHAV

In line with the ethos of ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’, the Indian Army has indigenously developed an “end-to-end secure mobile ecosystem” to provide secure communication with instant connectivity on the move, according to officials. The ecosystem — SAMBHAV (Secure Army Mobile Bharat Version) — operates on the state-of-the-art contemporary 5G technology and will represent a “significant leap forward in India’s defence capability”, a senior official said.

It has been developed in close collaboration with national centres of excellence from the academia and industry.

“Mobile networks are prone to eavesdropping and therefore information security of mobiles is at risk of being compromised. An end-to-end secure mobile ecosystem which is network-agnostic has been developed to provide secure communication with instant connectivity on the move,” the official said. This leverages the potential of indigenous public cellular networks in the country and the ecosystem has “5G -ready handsets using multi-tier encryption”, the official added.

This aligns with the government of India’s efforts towards “dual-use infrastructure” and it also manifests “civil-military fusion” in the field of emerging technology, the official sources said.

In the context of the SAMBHAV ecosystem, “35,000 sets are to be configured in two phases, with initial 2,500 sets to be configured by January 15, and the remaining by May 31 this year,” they added. The indigenously developed secure applications and operating system mark a”significant step towards Atmanirbhar Bharat”, the official said. SAMBHAV will have multi-layered encryption with a pan-India secure ecosystem. It will ride on a commercial network with inherent security, he added.

Officials also said that the Indian Army today is “undergoing transformation” and is expected to achieve “significant capabilities in cyberspace”.

“A robust cyber defence triad encompassing people, process and technology has been established by the Indian Army,” the officials said.

Conventional capabilities are no longer the only measure of military prowess. State and non-state actors are developing means to bridge conventional asymmetries across the world, they said.

Cyberspace has emerged as one of the “principle domains of hybrid warfare” and the proliferation of networks and IT infrastructure in the Indian Army has “increased manifold” which presents both opportunities and threats across the continuum of operations, the officials said.

Command Cyber Operations Support Wings (CCOSWs) are being established, which are “special sub-units” to augment cyber capability. Cyber capability is being enhanced and integrated at all levels with defence cyber agencies at strategic level, while CCOSWs will be functional at “operational and tactical levels”, the sources said.

Six CCOSWs are being established for all commands. The personnel will be given specialist training and undergo validation exercises, they added.