Importance of Cybersecurity in the Digital Age

The Internet and digital innovations have revolutionized our connectivity, communication, and global economy in an unprecedented scale of reach. The exponential growth of this digital revolution brings along an ever-expanding landscape of cyber threats.

A 2023 survey: Cloudflare reports 83% of Cyber incidents in Indian organizations. Verizon reports human error as the cause of 74% of breaches. Thus, cyber threats are a critical concern for everyone in this digital age.

A common man’s perception of ‘Cybersecurity as a domain of Technologists’ is a misnomer. The process of securing cyberspace involves ‘People’, ‘Processes’, and ‘Technology’, where Humans are often the weakest link in the realm of cyber security. The weaknesses of humans such as ignorance, fear, and human error are exploited by social engineering attacks such as phishing, scareware, baiting, etc…

In those attacks, the attacker establishes interactions with the victim through Email, SMS and other means of communications targeting the weaknesses of the victim to get the sensitive information required for establishing further attacks.

The awareness and education on the importance of cybersecurity to all the stakeholders of the digital workspace, either professional or personal, is a key enabler of a cyber-resilient environment. It helps everyone to cultivate cyber-safe practices such as using strong passwords, enabling multi-factor authentication, avoiding personal data disclosure on public platforms, Ignoring/reporting unsolicited anonymous communications, etc.

The Government of India campaigns such as displaying the Cyber Crime helpline number 1930 at prominent locations, promoting the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal (NCRP) (cybercrime.gov.in) through various media, and observing National Cyber Security Awareness Month in October are the initiatives to spread awareness to the public about cybercrime incidences, responses, and reporting procedures.

Beyond awareness, following cyber-safe practices in the professional and personal digital landscape is of utmost importance to ensure a secure digital environment. It demands the need for cyber security policy in various fields of digital activities.

The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), which is the national nodal agency for tackling cybersecurity incidents, has pioneered the effort to bring out cyber security policies, procedures, and awareness in collaboration with various public and private organizations. Some of the notable policies are the National Cyber Security Policy (NCSP) by DeitY, and the Cyber Security Strategy for Higher Education Institutes by AICTE.

These policies alone do not suffice, their effective implementation and regular monitoring is paramount to enable a cyber-safe environment. The security audit agencies play a vital role in the effective implementation of the security policy or framework while the legislative laws on cyber security ensure its legal protection. Some of the legislations that deal with cybersecurity violations, data protection, and cybercrime in India are The Information Technology (IT) Act(2000), the Companies Act (2013), and the Digital Personal Data Protection Act (2023).

Collaboration among various stakeholders is one of the key strategies for cyber defense establishments. The role of government is significant in synergizing the collaboration among Industries, government bodies, and academia to tackle ever evolving cyber threats.

In this direction, our nation has evolved with initiatives such as the National Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Centre (NCIIPC), Cyber Swachhta Kendra (Botnet Cleaning and Malware Analysis Centre), Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) for sharing insights, resources, and expertise to collectively strengthen the ability to detect, prevent, and respond to cyber-attacks.

Trending technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Blockchain are redefining cybersecurity perception and approaches. AI is like a Swiss knife, on one hand, it enables intelligent automation of real-time threat detection, protection, and prevention by utilizing its massive data analytics capability. But on the other hand, it can be a deadly weapon at the hands of hackers.

One such example is Deepfakes which utilizes deep learning and generative AI techniques to create fake digital content that resembles the original. People with malicious intent use it to spread hatred against targeted groups, defame celebrities, and many more. The awareness of discriminating against fake digital content and reporting such incidents to platforms like NCRP are essential to combat such attacks.

Blockchain is an innovative solution for trustable transactions among trustless entities in a decentralized environment. The transactions on a blockchain network are immutable and non-refutable thereby the system ensures the integrity of the sensitive information. But remember, it is not a one-stop solution for all security needs.

Safeguarding us from ever-growing cyber threats is crucial in this digital age. Everyone from government, technologists, lawmakers, academia, and the public has a responsible role in this endless combat against cyber threats.

In a nutshell, awareness of cyber threats, cultivating cyber-safe practices and timely reporting of cyber security incidents are the three mantras of safe cyber-space.

By Dr. Sudhir Shenai, Associate Professor, Information Science and Engineering, Nitte Meenakshi Institute of Technology