Seven areas of focus for India's cybersecurity market over the next year

Much like the rest of the world, industries in India are gearing up for an enhanced cybersecurity practice with a special focus on personal data protection. Siddharth Vishwanath, Cyber Security Leader at PwC India has enumerated seven main areas of focus for cybersecurity in India this year.

India’s economy has been transitioning to the online domain at a rapid rate in recent years. Reports have placed the number of projected online users in the country at 850 million by as early as 2025. Nevertheless, individual users and some companies alike in India remain relatively new to operating online and are susceptible to risks.

Cyber attacks are increasing in frequency across the globe, usually targeting sensitive information. Big Four accounting and advisory firm Deloitte, for instance, went through an ordeal in 2017, when sensitive information such as emails from its clients were compromised over a period of six months.

As a result, not only have major firms in the country begun to shore up their own cybersecurity practices, but the Big Four have also begun to enhance their capabilities in the forensics and cybersecurity domain in order to support businesses across the country with this goal.

According to Siddharth Vishwanath, the protection of personal data and privacy is the first of seven key areas that firms in India are likely to focus on in 2019. India has recently passed the Personal Data Protection Bill, which most companies ­– particularly those that handle personal data – will be looking to comply with.

Alongside the realignment of organisational structure to minimise risk, Vishwanath predicts that automation, machine learning and other Industry 4.0 tools will become an increasing part of cybersecurity mechanisms, given their utility for detecting areas of vulnerability and possible breaches.

Technologies such as Alexa have been growing in popularity in India, which makes security in the Internet of Things (IoT) domain of the essence as well. Smart cities are a significant part of current government policy, and involve a large amount of automation and IoT implementation.

The cloud is another area that requires substantial safety measures. The public cloud market in India is expected to reach a value of nearly $2 billion in the near future, which represents a growing pool of vulnerable information that can be misused. Other areas of focus include measures against possible internal threats, enhanced security testing and the implementation of blockchain.