Firms Should Invest Over 10% of IT Assets in Cyber Security: National Cyber Security Coordinator Lt Gen (Retd.) Dr. Rajesh Pant

New Delhi, February 20, 2023: “Companies should invest more than 10% of information technology assets in cybersecurity. In the future, once 5G comes, we expect the 5 billion internet users to reach 25 billion by the end of this year and therefore, companies must invest in security. Never compromise on the security part,” said Lt Gen (Retd.) Dr. Rajesh Pant, AVSM, VSM National Cyber Security Coordinator, National Security Council Secretariat of India, Government of India, at the 17^th India Digital Summit, being organised here by the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), in association with Google and MessageBird, on February 20-21, 2023.

Speaking of the ‘splinternet’ concept, Dr. Pant pointed out, “Because of this splinternet and lack of cooperation between nations, the criminals are taking advantage as there are no international laws and regulations which help the agencies for solving cybercrimes,” he pointed out.

“The World Economic Forum has been saying that cybercrime is the biggest manmade risk to the economic progress of a nation. Last year the total loss was estimated to be $ 6 trillion,” Dr. Pant said.

Discussing India’s role in dealing with cybercrime, Dr. Pant said, “At the national level, we created the National Counter Ransomware Task Force under the Ministry of Home Affairs. Other national-level initiatives include the Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre which handles the cybercrime portal cybercrime.gov.in where one can report cybercrimes.”

He said, “India also has the National Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Centre (NCIIPC) which has about 580 people that monitor and predict cyber threats. Some 7 critical sectors have been identified out of which 2 supercritical ones are power and telecom.”

Talking about international-level solutions for cybercrime, Dr. Pant said that like-minded nations including India, Australia, UK, and the US, were getting together. “We have created an International Counter Ransomware Task Force where perpetrators are put under sanctions. It has saved about $150 million,” he mentioned.

Closing his speech, Dr. Pant highlighted the three hard truths of cyber security – vulnerability, cyber-attacks, and attribution. He added that the two mantras for the post-Covid digital world were: personal health and cyber hygiene.

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