While at present cyberthreats are restricted to information technology, once 5G rollouts enable Industry 4.0 – the ongoing fourth industrial revolution centred on automation, smart technology, interconnectivity, and machine learning – and internet of things (IoT) in shop floors, this will extend to operating technology as well, according to Rajesh Pant, India’s national cyber security coordinator. “The two biggest threats are ransomware and crypto jacking,” he told ET.
The threats extend to individuals too as the country sees more digital adoption. The cyber risk for previously low risk groups like small businesses and individuals has gone up exponentially.
“This really opens up a Pandora’s box. From children to elderly, from small street vendors to people in the rural areas – everyone is using digital means,” said Gaurav Shukla, partner at Deloitte India.
The growth in online gaming and online education can make children easy targets for fraud and exploitation, which needs to be addressed through awareness and education. A misstep by a single individual could have ramifications that go far beyond him.
Educating individuals and enterprises and keeping them abreast on emerging cyber threats will be critical in the future, given how rapidly the nature of cyber risks is changing, experts said.
ALSO READ TECH NEWSLETTER OF THE DAY
Eruditus’ mammoth funding has made it a unicorn, thrice over. Twitter locks Congress accounts days after complying with India IT rules. A bipartisan trio of US senators have sponsored a bill to rein in Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store.
Read Now
In the past year, several state-sponsored actors have exploited a bug in the system or introduced malware through a software patch to wreak havoc on critical infrastructure.
“That’s the bigger worry over hackers asking for money,” said Pankit Desai, CEO, Sequretek, a core security threat management platform. “This is an even bigger concern in industries that are non-regulated and don’t have proper security in place,” he said.
Cyberattacks on critical public infrastructure can have a much more severe impact on the population as compared to ransomware. In the future, nation state actors are expected to increasingly resort to attacking critical infrastructure as a means of cyber warfare, which could even result in a loss of lives.
The country’s cyber security coordinator Pant said the National Cyber Security Council has created a cybersecurity roadmap for the next five years, which is now awaiting parliamentary approval.
“The national cyber security strategy addresses issues in the entire cybersecurity ecosystem, including aspects like audit, education, etc.,” he said.
One area where there is potential – and need – for Indian companies to step in is creating homegrown cybersecurity products. Pant said there are opportunities for startups and larger firms to create solutions across the whole range of security solutions.
Desai of Sequretek said big cybersecurity multinationals don’t create solutions specifically for India because the country’s share in the global market for cybersecurity products is small. “Homegrown cyber security products are essential for a country, otherwise you are left to the mercy of international providers,” he said.
While 20-30% of the products currently can be customised, it still puts pressure on what kind of customisation capability the country has or the set of service providers that can support the ecosystem.
“At an enterprise level, attacks on certain key sectors such as BFSI (banking, financial services and insurance), manufacturing, health care, telecom and the tech startups would continue to rise, with the adversaries clearly seeing an opportunity to earn quick money using ransomware, digital currency mining and even deep fakes,” Shukla of Deloitte said.
People are still unable to recognise these and it could have severe consequences for individuals and enterprises, he said.
For all the latest Technology News Click Here
