India most vulnerable to cyber attacks

"India as a country is most vulnerable to cyber security attacks. This gets more complicated given that the authorities in the government and private sector are not geared up to tackle the menace as a comprehensive strategy" said Harjinder Singh Lallie from the University of Warwick. Lallie who is an acknowledged expert on cyber security and digital investigation in the UK said "a good amount of work has been done in some sectors but in many others it was woefully inadequate".

Lallie told Dataquest that India needs to secure itself fr0m a range of cyber security threats and the biggest challenge is the lack of availability of cyber security skills.

He also termed the current approaches in dealing with cyber security unscientific and will not help the government or industry - since the threat can virtually cripple the country's operations. He quoted the example of the Stuxnet Virus which can affect industrial control systems. This virus has the potential to damage India's water filtering systems, oil pipe lines, air traffic control systems, electrical power generating systems, and other critical systems. The greatest impact will be on India's ability to handle such threats and attacks and the international community will be weary of doing business with a nation whose ability to ensure and secure business relationships will be compromised.

He further added that: "The best way for India to move forward and develop its ability to handle such serious and critical issues is to collaborate with specialized universities in the UK and USA, thereby producing highly qualified professionals who can help to prevent such devastating attacks. Quoting a Gartner report he said "The country's information security market is expected to grow by 18% to reach Rs 1,415 crore in 2013 on the back of increased spending by companies to secure their information assets. Despite a continuing economic slowdown that has been putting pressure on IT budgets around the world, cyber security spending globally would continue on an upward trajectory, reaching $86 billion in 2016, up from $60 billion in 2012."

 The Skills Gap

India will require five lakh cyber security professionals by 2015 to support its fast growing internet economy according to an estimate by the Union Ministry of Information Technology. India, with its 860 million mobile subscriptions (although, the numbers of users would be lower than this figure) is looking more and more to the internet as a delivery platform of socio-economic programs and a tool to boost the economy. The fact is that as the remaining unconnected population of India begins to acquire Internet through multiple computing form factors - the government need to up its ante on security and surveillance over the internet - which is inevitable. This also means that the government needs to rely on the industry to help them with this gigantic task. It is here that the crying need of cyber security professionals will be felt.

According to Lallie, "The Warwick Manufacturing Group (WMG) at the University of Warwick is doing some cutting edge work in the realm of cyber security and through a innovative curriculum it also offers Masters level Cyber Security and research programs.