MeitY Urges Startups To Develop Cybersecurity, Cyber Hygiene Products 

At the launch event of ‘Cyber Security Grand Challenge,’ the ministry of electronics and information technology (MeitY) secretary Ajay Prakash Sawhney, said that India with its proven ability in software solution and services has the potential to grow aggressively in the area of cybersecurity, especially with the help of startups working in the field of cybersecurity and cyber hygiene.

Sawhney in a media report said that the government looks to provide a platform for innovators and startups to align its efforts in the development of products and solutions for solving critical cybersecurity problems.

Further, the MeitY official said that the cybersecurity service and products business in India is $1.9 Bn (INR 13.5K Cr) and $450 Mn (INR 3.2K Cr), respectively. Overall, the Indian cybersecurity market is currently worth $5 Bn (INR 35.5K Cr), Sawhney said. He added that these numbers need to increase drastically in the coming days and more cybersecurity and cyber hygiene products and tools need to be developed by startups and large corporates to tackle the vulnerabilities occurring across various channels.

Cybersecurity Threats On The Rise In India 

Cybersecurity experts believe that enterprises and startups with unprotected servers are the biggest contributors to data breaches in the country. The cybersecurity body of India CERT-In had said that it reported over 3.13 Lakh cybersecurity incidents in 2019

In 2019, a lot of security and data breaches have been reported, including Oyo, Bounce, Just Dial, Airtel, Nykaa Fashion, WhatsApp, OnePlus and others. Of these, the WhatsApp case is still ongoing as the Pegasus spyware scandal is said to have government involvement and entails state-backed surveillance.

The US-based CrowdStrike also had stated that Indian companies take more time to address data breaches as compared to other countries. On an average, India takes nine days, while global companies take seven days to respond to cyber threats.

According to the Michigan-based Ponemon Institute and IBM Security ‘Cost of a Data Breach,’ report, in the past six years, the average cost of a data breach has been growing at 12%, costing about $3.92 Mn per breach in 2019, globally.

Last week, Chinese short video app TikTok claimed to have fixed a vulnerability in its app that allowed hackers to manipulate content, delete videos, upload unauthorized videos, tamper with ‘hidden’ videos and extract confidential information of users via SMS containing a malicious link.

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