India needs a cyber security strategy

With cyber inroads in today’s networked world, the threats to cyber security have grown manifold. As we digitize, this will inadvertently lead further cyber-crime and terrorism. Are we equipped to handle such crisis and is there any level of preparedness that the state is working towards in the face of cyber threats? In an attempt to address Cyber security and discuss the right perspective on practicing patriotism from various practical angles including Cyber Patriotism, SKOCH Group, India’s topmost think-tank for socio-economic issues today organized India’s national summit on Practising Patriotism at 57th SKOCH Summit. First of its kind focusing on the subject of patriotism, the Summit opened a new debate on India’s emergent need for Cyber Security Policy in public domain. First meeting of the Cyber Patriots Task Force was organized, which was chaired by Dr Gulshan Rai, National Cyber Security Coordinator. The multi-stakeholder discussion was attended by members and experts drawn from the government, Big-5 consulting, enforcement agencies, economists and academia.

Talking about Cyber Security, Brijesh Singh, Inspector General of Police-Cyber, Maharashtra, said "It is a Bank’s responsibility to secure the client’s money. A digital incident cannot be blamed on the customer’s ignorance. States are at different stages of maturity in terms of implementing the policies. Almost 1000 cyber incidents are happening every day, not all of which gets registered. We have to understand that cybersecurity is not a technology problem. Maharashtra has a Rs 1000 crore project where we are building cyber labs and cyber police stations in each district.”

Speaking on the need for Cyber Patriotism, Sameer Kochhar, Chairman of SKOCH Group and an eminent reforms historian, said “Cyber Security Policy in public domain is what we need today in this digital world. 90% of country’s IT capability is outside the Government. Cyber Patriotism can play a vital role in breaking the existing cyber monopoly in the country. Even before we begin to talk about cyber security, it would be important to know the intensity of the threat and it’s evolution.”

Dr. Shefali Dash, Former Director General, National Informatics Center, said “The government alone cannot handle Cyber security issues that face us. The private sector has more resources, research and knowledge in this space. We need government and private collaboration to deal with the issues and protect our cyber space.” 

Gokul Kumar Simli, Principal Consultant & CTO, Passport Seva, Ministry of External Affairs, said "It is imperative that we understand our data to be able to protect it. It is important that when a person connects with us he/she should feel empowered. Only when we understand what are the values that we are trying to deliver? What our data is all about? When we understand all the stakeholders and the whole ecosystem, we will be able to puts the right security measures and checks. "

Jaspreet Singh Partner-Cyber Security, Africa, India & Middle East(AIM), Ernst &Young, said “Traditionally we thought that Army was enough for security but now we need cybersecurity too. When we include cyber warfare, we have to look at it from a nation’s perspective.”

Akhilesh Tuteja, Global Co-Leader-Cyber Security KPMG said, “ We are trying to protect singularity of interests with a cyber security strategy. Most people are not thinking about the possibilities technology domination can create for monopolies.”

Eminent dignitaries, government representatives and cyber security experts including Akhilesh Tuteja, Global Co-Leader-Cyber Security KPMG , Rohan Kochhar, Director, Public Policy, SKOCH Group, Shefali Dash, Former Director General ,National Informatics Centre, Sivarama Krishnan, Leader-Cyber Security PwC, Brijesh Singh, IG Police-Cyber, Maharashtra, Gokul Kumar Simli, Principal Consultant & CTO, Passport Seva, Ministry of External Affairs, SS Sharma, Director CERT-In, MeitY, Gautam Kapoor, Partner, Deloitte India, Dr. Gursharan Dhanjal, MD & Editor, SKOCH Group, Jaspreet Singh Partner-Cyber Security, Africa, India & Middle East(AIM), Ernst & Young, Gulshan Rai, National Cyber Security Coordinator discussed the need for Cyber Patriotism and various challenges that Indian Cyber security is facing today.

The Summit successfully addressed key Cyber security issues such as:

• Is India understanding how Cyber Vulnerable it is?
• Imperative role of PPP as private sector has more resources and knowledge base?
• Dire need for a blue book of Cyber Security and why the protection regulations need to see the issues as ecosystem issues and not individual issues.

Cyber security experts also discussed the challenges of cyber security infrastructure such as a huge number of attacks that are being made every day, the huge gap between design of protection framework and implementation and the upscaling of the government/ regulator and private Sector interaction which is right now deep into audit only.