India’s Cybersecurity Strategy: Inclusion of Sovereignty

India's upcoming National Cybersecurity Strategy will introduce an element of sovereignty, and it will set guidelines for enterprises to address gaps in India's ecosystem.

Lt. General Rajesh Pant, country's National Cybersecurity coordinator, while speaking at Pursuit 2021, an industry event organized by the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) said, an element of sovereignty will be incorporated in the national cyberspace to create a safe, secure, resilient, trusted and vibrant cyberspace for our national prosperity.

Pant says it is like a principle that addresses the entire ecosystem. So, it will address cybercrimes, capacity building, audits, research and developments, and all other aspects will be addressed. Several deliverables will be there. He also said that the strategy will accompany the theory of 'Common but Differentiated Responsibility (CBDR)', which puts the responsibility of cybersecurity on all involved sectors, including corporates, education, users, and governments. The policy is awaiting approval at the cabinet, and once it is approved it will make changes to the 2013 version and will be "futuristic" while addressing the "entire ecosystem" involved.

Pant added, the way 2021 has started, the year would be called ransomware. He says hitherto $1 trillion has been paid as ransom and there is a rapid increase in the scale of attacks. The financial sector will have to be more conscious and ensure that all the efforts required for strong cybersecurity are put into place. He suggested a model 'zero trust architectures' that is to be adopted. It is a network security model that suspects everyone near a network to be harmful.

It is hoped that the Personal Data Protection (PDP) bill will be introduced in the forthcoming monsoon session of the Parliament, said Pant. Like the European General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR), the PDP also offers for fining enterprises if cyber-attacks aren't disclosed in time.

Cybersecurity is everyone's responsibility. Today, most of the complex sectors like telecom, fall under the private sector. Major players like Reliance, Airtel, and Vodafone are in the private sector. In such cases, the private sector has to be equally prepared for the state-backed Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) attacks, and in the private sector, the attack starts with an individual," he said.