India’s cyber security market for products and services will grow up to $35 billion in 10 years from the present $4.5 billion. However, the security concerns of the growth are also high, said Gulshan Rai. Adviser to PM.

The healthy growth is being driven by innovation and newer technologies, but the safeguards to ensure safety of services and products is seeing slow progress. There is an urgent need to bridge the gap, the cyber security adviser said.

The challenges are three pronged in the cyber space — the boom in consumer applications, use in trade economy and security and sovereignty. Are we prepared to meet the issues emerging?

Posing these questions at the Aeronautical Society of India (Hyderabad Chapter) event recently, Gulshan Rai said there is an urgent need for the research Institutes, industry and academia to focus on developments that made India strong in this space.

The implications of security breaches cost heavily both in terms of finance and infrastructure, he said citing the example of the Cosmos Bank fraud in August. Rai said on August 11 about ₹76 crore was withdrawn within two hours and another ₹13 crore two days later. It spread across 28 countries. More than 4,500 cards were cloned and 148 ATMs were used. There is a cascading effect in an inter-connected world in cyber crimes, he observed.

According to a Nasscom, Data Security Council of India & PwC Report the cyber security market has been projected to be $35 billion by 2025. A million jobs created and a 1,000 start-ups in place.

The Report prepared by a Task Force of Nasscom chaired by Rajendra Pawar on the request of the PMO in 2016, came up with a road map for India to become a global hub for cyber security products and services.

DRDO Initiatives

In wars of the future Cyber and Space are the fourth and fifth areas after the Army, Air Force and Navy, hence cyber security will be very critical said G Sateesh Reddy, Secretary, Defence R&D and Director-General, Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO).

To create capacity and skilled professional in cyber security the DRDO is talking with Research Institutes and academia. The NIT in Kurukshetra and the DIT, Pune the Defence University are already offering Master’s courses in cyber security, he said.

The other area of focus will be promoting start-ups in this area. While many developed nations including Israel entered cyber security over a decade ago and India is just about accelerating its engagement, Satheesh Reddy added.

Y Sreenivas Rao, Secretary, ASI Chapter said concerted efforts were being made to bring together industry-academia and strategic institutes to brainstorm and formulate projects for developing new technologies of national relevance.

comment COMMENT NOW