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efense Minister Ryamizard Ryacudu has warned that Indonesia is on the brink of a cyber war and should prepare infrastructure and human resources to survive it.

'€œToday our country is facing war, a cyber war, and we are under threat,'€ Ryamizard told soldiers of Udayana Regional Military Command (Kodam) during a visit in Kupang, East Nusa Tenggara.

The Defense Ministry has claimed that cyber attack, along with terrorism, disease and narcotics are the greatest dangers to the country.

'€œThe military should be aware of these threats and we should have our own strategy to address the situation,'€ said Ryamizard, who is a former Army chief of staff. He said the strategy to meet the threat was different from conventional war using weapons and troops.

Cyber war is a coordinated, systematic attack on computers, communications networks, databases or media.

Brig. Gen. Jan Pieter Ate, the head of the ministry'€™s Defense Management Center, explained to The Jakarta Post the importance of cyber defense. '€œThere are many things to do, including strengthening organization, improving human resources and building infrastructure, otherwise we will not be ready to deal with this kind of war,'€ said Jan, who is the ministry'€™s former director of international cooperation.

Jan acknowledged that the ministry had developed the Cyber Operations Center (COC) in May under former defense minister Purnomo Yusgiantoro; however, the center is not yet functioning properly.

Purnomo said the center had a system that would be connected to the Indonesian Military (TNI) and individual cyber units in the Army, Navy, Air Force and the ministry. The COC consists of teams that have specific tasks such as intrusion prevention, threat analysis, hacker monitoring, recovery and attack.

However, Purnomo acknowledged that the initiative was still new and needed many improvements, for example training patriotic hackers and purchasing satellite systems to avoid security breaches.

It also requires military human resources to take a strategic position at the center.

Jan said that human resources had been the main obstacle to improving cyber defense in Indonesia.

'€œIt involves sophisticated technology that is not for everybody,'€ he said, adding that the ministry was currently in need of experts from within the military to deal with the technology.

Using experienced hackers at the center was possible, but it would be better to have experts with military backgrounds, he said.

Another issue related to cyber defense was technology infrastructure, Jan said it would require a lot of money to build the infrastructure.

'€œThe technology is costly and we don'€™t have much money,'€ he said.

Jan acknowledged that the defense ministry had allocated a certain budget for the purpose next year, but he provided no further details on the sums involved.

Although there are many constraints on the nation'€™s cyber defense, Jan is optimistic that Indonesia can develop it.

Intelligence expert Susaningtyas Handayani Kertopati told the Post that Indonesia should have a community-based defense that involved local hackers to protect Indonesian cyber space. '€œEarly detection should be done properly. Some citizens have skills in IT and they should help improve our cyber defense,'€ she said.