The everyday threat of cybercrime in India is costing citizens from ₹1.3 to ₹1.5 lakh every minute to the cyber criminals. This shocking fact was shared at the ISACA Annual Cyber Security Conference in Hyderabad, where the top specialists and governmental officials discussed the increasing risk of cyber threats and the steps that need to be taken to fight them.
In his speech at the ISACA conference, Bhavesh Mishra, Deputy Secretary of the Telangana IT and Electronics Department, voiced his worry about the low rate of successful investigations for cyber fraud cases, which is now below 20%. He stressed that cybercrime is getting more and more advanced and warned of a scenario where the Third World War would be a “mathematician’s war,” meaning that ascending in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and cybersecurity would be the main fuel.
Mishra urged AI and cybersecurity companies to establish their operations in the already underway AI City that extends to 200 acres in Telangana State, an idea that was rolled out by the CM of the state, A. Revanth Reddy earlier this past month. It is envisaged that AI City will serve as an Innovation Hub in the area of anti-cybercrime and will attract the firms in the tech industry to cooperate in addressing the mentioned problems.
Top law & order officer Avinash Mohanty of the Cyberabad Commissionerate made the shocking revelation that now the cybercrimes have more incidence with the crime cases and have gone up to 30% in the Commissionerate. He also had a prediction that the crime would hit over 50% in the near future. Mohanty highlighted the need for the law enforcement bodies to lay more emphasis on prevention, rather than only dealing with the breeds after they have shown up.
“We need to escape the postmortem work only after the fraud has been committed and take steps to direct the issue before it is much too late,” said Mohanty. He also underscored the importance of quicker regulations and deeper collaboration between the government and the private sector to be ahead of the vying cyber threats.
Also Read: Advanced Life Security: Critical Advisory
Financial institutions were advised to increase their strictness in the efficient performance of KYC (Know your customer) obligations and also to monitor and ensure compliance with rules on cybersecurity. Mishra has claimed that inquiries have displayed the existence of more than one company-which was in many cases functioning under the same address and having common directors-that is perpetually related to acts of cyber fraud. He compared such structures to “off-the-shelf companies,” those companies that are directly created for fake actions.
The gathering of industry leaders, civil servants, bankers, and technology experts was an opportunity for them to converse on the future of cybersecurity in the era of AI. G. Narendra Nath, Joint Secretary of the National Security Council, raised the issue of whether citizens should be involved in the co-creation of security services. He claimed that safety is the number one requirement for the development of a new system and services.
The conference featured the announcement of a suite of measures that have been rolled out to lessen the number of phishing attacks, in particular those targeting banks. In addition, Nath stated that all banks will need to put ‘160’ at the start of the customer care numbers, so as to easily tell whether customers are talking to scammers or legitimate organizations. Calls that come without this prefix should be the ones gotten rid of by clients.
According to the latest guidelines, in India, all financial institutions must add the domain extension .bnk.in to their URLs, and they must use .fin.in to give indications of their rightful status. Furthermore, only the Institute for Technology Development and Banking Research of Hyderabad (IDRBT) would be the one to accredit these domains, and otherwise, authorized entities would be able to get them.
The call for increased capacity-building was also a dominant highlight of the event. Nath posited that a need now is the deployment of cybersecurity professionals in every enterprise throughout the country and the promotion of women in cybersecurity in a variety of perspectives. He monitored that as access to networks was the key area targeted by the hackers, companies had to create work environments that helped women integrate into cybersecurity without being discriminated against by men who dominate the field. He also specified that their participation is crucial to the formation of a resilient cybersecurity defense mechanism in the country.
Cheers to cybercrime that has found itself on the ascend, the ISACA Annual Cyber Security Conference is the right scenario to emphasize a quick and harsh solution to the issue through cybersecurity measures. In this way, both the government and private companies can partner with the citizens with the aim to defend the country from cyber threats and at the same time foster innovation and inclusivity in the cybersecurity sector.
