At a time when increasing number of Indian business to business (B2B) areas and niches are subject to newer and enhanced forms of cyber-attacks, it only becomes imperative to use some sort of solutions that can offer a minimum of one layer of protection from newer forms of cyber crimes and thereby shun cyber criminals.
B2B sectors, here, refer to organisations such as banks, large financial institutions, and the manufacturing sector as well. Also, at this instant of time, it is worth remembering that after Indian prime minister Narendra Modi announced the ambitious Digital India initiative, the number of cyber-criminals and hackers have only multiplied.
With this being the criteria, Rahul R of Electronics For You interacted with AP Ramabhadran who is senior vice-president at Bengaluru-based Manipal Global Education on various cyber security aspects and the role of our government in combating these attacks.
Q. What is the importance of cyber security in the 2017 Digital India scheme of things? How to engineer the best cyber security solutions that can be practically implemented?
A. Rapid digitization initiatives worldwide emphasize the need for more native cyber security measures. As we enter the ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’ with Internet of Things and advances in machine intelligence, it is more imperative to make cyber security and privacy at the center of this transformation.
Modern Threat actors are very powerful with unlimited resources and time. There is an important nuance between engineering cyber security solutions and engineering any solutions that are natively secure. To combat them Simplification, Automation, Open Architectures are needed in both areas.
Q. What, according to you (being an experienced industry professional) is the current focus of our government on cyber security? How do you think that the government is promoting international collaborations digital security?
A. Digital India and the Smart City initiatives of Government of India has a huge emphasis on cyber security. Numerous initiatives like Cyber Swachhata Kendra are started in public-private partnerships to promote cyber security.
Data Security Council of India (DSCI) is also driving many initiatives to foster innovation and adoption in this area by promoting startups and international collaborations.
Q. Since we spoke about initiatives to protect data digitally, what are the best measures that can be taken to check Intellectual Property thefts?
A. Intellectual property is central to any knowledge based society. Intervention of technology and resultant digitization has made almost everything – design, technology, art, and music available in digital form.
In this context, it is important to promote awareness of measures to prevent intellectual property thefts. Cyber literacy will encourage sharing of information digitally only in secure manner with an understanding of threats involved. There is also a need for standardization of cyber security measures aimed at curbing possible threats.
