India at 75: Evolved role of cyber security in protecting the interests of Digital India

India is under global limelight as the country’s economy continues to march northward when world-over there is a pall of gloom on apprehensions related to recession. And as the country shines under this glory, the acclaim stands out even further since the country is celebrating its 75th year of Independence from colonial rule.

The 75 years gone by has witnessed India gaining formidable competency across multiple sectors such as manufacturing, technology services, agriculture, healthcare, start-up to cite a few. Banking is another such sector that has seen consistent and rapid strides in its ever-evolving journey even more so from an end-user experience perspective.

While till about two decades back the overwhelming experience for most banking customers was on the undesired side, the same has transformed in recent years with advent and advancements of digital as a delivery platform. This trend particularly received a mammoth boost with the wide scale adoption of Unified Payment Interface popularly referred to as UPI. Indian consumers now count among the world’s top in terms of usage of digital payments for day-to-day financial transactions.

Another recent initiative is the open network for digital commerce (ONDC) that is conceptualized to integrate and converge ecommerce for all merchants including local kirana shops and street vendors. Global experts are already rating it to achieve similar success as that of UPI and further leapfrog India as a global case study on digital adoption.

Similar to the two initiatives outlined above, there are many more that are equally noteworthy. In fact the path for adoption of digital across the spectrum of daily lifestyle requirements of Indians, was paved on July 1, 2015 when the government announced the launch of Digital India initiative. Ever since then the digital revolution continues unabated and on a fast-paced mode.

While this momentum is encouraging to know and enables India to consolidate its hold as an economic superpower, the phenomenon is also leading to increased number of cyber breaches that in many cases end up diluting consumer faith on such modern day digital-led capabilities. Statistics as released by Government formulated CERT-In (the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team) shows that 6,74,021 cyber security related incidents have been reported in India during just the first six months till June 2022. Last year the figures was over 14 lakh.

The need of the hour therefore is to ensure a peace of mind end-user experience that ensures the faith of general population is restored on new-age digital technologies and the benefits are leveraged in the desired way.

For this, the cyber security considerations need to extend beyond the network layer and devices which typically is the approach. There is pertinent need to be equally prepared to fend of mobile theft related dynamics as well. Mobile Threat Defense (MTD) is gaining global acceptance as a formidable way of keeping at bay threats while using mobile apps or while transacting through the same. In Indian context, it promises to empower Indian services providers such as banks, fintech companies, insurtech start-ups and all such ecosystem players who make use of mobile app interface to enable end-users to avail the services, to deliver a foolproof experience. For a mobile-first, digital-first environment that we live in India, this augers well to protect end-user interest.

With the robust security architecture guaranteed under the purview of MTD, such solutions can embed well with mobile apps and ensure uninterrupted and hassle free experience. While the end-user can make the most of the mobile app, the MTD preparedness will enable real-time security on the end-user’s device basis runtime security controls included in the MTD framework. Take for instance the recently reported SOVA malware that is speculated to have affected considerable number of end-users in India. A MTD-based preparedness would have ensured that the threat is negated in its buds. Also, October month is a Cyber Security Awareness Month. It is much required to take right steps to make people Cybersmart. Appropriate stance through various initiatives under Cyber Security Awareness should aim at protecting digital identity of individuals, making them more self-reliant towards data protection and fraud identification. Security awareness has large scale implications on Digital First approach adoption boosting MTD preparedness as well.

In conclusion, India’s momentum has picked the right pace and even more so in the digital era that we live. The upcoming days is set to witness more traction on this front with anticipated uptake of concepts such as metaverse and mandatory migration to a tokenisation mechanism as mandated by regulator, RBI. While such progressions take place, it is important that concerned stakeholders proactively equip themselves to protect the interest of the end-user through Cyber Security Awareness Initiatives and protect masses from any type of cyber threats.

Author: Manish Mimani – Founder & CEO, Protectt.ai