The significant augment in cyber threats and cybersecurity attacks poses a significant obstacle to enterprises’ digital transformation ambitions, especially given the inevitable integration of 5G and artificial intelligence (AI).
As India advances in digital connectivity, the cyber threat landscape will continue to evolve, according to a recent report that ranked India 80th among countries most targeted by cybercrime. Another report ranked India as the 5th most breached country with 5.3 million accounts leaked in 2023. Globally, a total of 299.8 million accounts were breached.
The Indian Department of Telecom recently launched a Digital Intelligence Platform (DIP) for coordination among stakeholders and aimed at curbing misuse of telecom resources for cybercrime and financial fraud. Apart from this, the ‘Chakshu’ feature has been launched on the Sanchar Saathi portal to enable reporting suspected frauds. Initiatives have been taken to enable consumers to proactively report suspected frauds, which will go a long way in curbing such incidents as India moves closer to a digital nation. Directions were also issued to telecom operators to block 28,200 mobile phones used in cyber crimes and 20 lakh mobile numbers associated with these phones needed to be re-verified. India’s cybersecurity market reached $6.06 billion in 2023, but cyber fraud and crime remain unchecked due to gaps in consumer awareness and continuous exploit of emerging technologies by spammers.
The augment in the number of such incidents has resulted in an increased demand for cybersecurity specialists. However, due to the shortage of skilled labor, the problems have become more entrenched. India accounted for just six percent of global cybersecurity jobs and the demand-supply gap was 30 percent, which experts say poses a significant skills challenge in the industry.
However, the implementation of 5G networks and AI applications in various industries will introduce recent cybersecurity challenges in the IoT space, threats to network security, etc. However, by implementing effective security measures such as encryption, multi-factor authentication, network segmentation, threat intelligence and test security, the risk is can be minimized.
The government and private sector are working to improve cybersecurity measures through a number of initiatives. However, despite these efforts, challenges remain in creating a robust infrastructure, a pipeline of skilled cybersecurity professionals, and close collaboration between government, industry, and academia to effectively combat cyber threats.
