Digitisation and Internet of Things make us efficient, but these come with threats: Cybersecurity expert

Data breaches are now a daily phenomenon and we don’t know which hack will take a gigantic proportion, taking our world upside down, cyber security experts said at the “India Mobile Congress (IMC) 2017” here on Thursday. [caption id=“attachment_4083695” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representative Image[/caption] India and other South Asian countries are now on the radar of cyber attackers and the government and corporates need to procure New Age security solutions to thwart their plans. The impact of the recent global cyber attacks was clearly visible in India as “ **WannaCrypt** ” — that affected 150 countries globally — and the recent “ **Petya** ” malware attack hit computers in the country. “Even if you have resources, you cannot fully eliminate cyber risks. There are a lot of hacks happening everyday but we don’t know which hack will become the big one. We need to enhance our perspective when it comes to technology to secure the organisations,” said Captain Raghu Raman, President, Risk Security and New Ventures at Reliance Industries Limited, during one of the sessions. According to Shree Parthasarathy, Partner, Risk Advisory Services, Deloitte India, the landscape of the cyber threat is changing. “As we move ahead to build smart cities in India, we have to understand the cyber risks that are associated with it. We have to have foolproof systems in place to mitigate such risks,” Parthasarathy told the gathering. “Digitisation and Internet of Things (IoT) make us efficient but these come with threats and efficient cybersecurity capabilities will ensure data safety,” added Subramanian Udaiyappan, Cyber Security Specialist, India & SAARC-Advanced Threat Solutions, Cisco. As India sees a surge in digital payments while aiming to become a $1 trillion digital economy in the next four years, the security loopholes need to be addressed and fixed, the experts emphasised.