93% cybersecurity pros see room for improvement in public-private partnerships to combat threats: Report

The Indian government has in the recent past taken up multiple initiatives to combat cyber threats. This includes a report by the Parliamentary panel on Information Technology in late March this year, which suggested a need to boost cybersecurity manpower.  

On April 11, Union Minister of State for Electronics and IT and Skill Development Rajeev Chandrasekhar said at an event that India needs considerable investment in cybersecurity and its research domains’ infrastructure and enterprises to keep it secure from cyber-attacks.   

However, 93% of Indian cybersecurity experts believe that there is room for improvement in cybersecurity partnerships with the government, while 89% of respondents believe the government can play a critical role in enhancing the nation's cyber defences, according to a report by California-based cybersecurity company Trellix. 

Indian cybersecurity decision-makers see a lot more room in the areas of cyber defence coordination, threat information sharing and software supply chain integrity. 

The study was conducted in partnership with London-based technology market research company, Vanson Bourne on 900 cybersecurity professionals, these included 200 respondents each from India, Australia and Japan respectively. 

“Global tensions and cyber-warfare incidents in Ukraine sharpen our focus on the cyber readiness of government and critical infrastructure,” said Bryan Palma, CEO of Trellix. 

In terms of cloud security, 32% of Indian respondents said they have fully implemented the modern cloud cybersecurity posture. 

When it comes to software supply chain risks, 65% of the Indian experts felt implementing software supply chain risk solutions was difficult, while 35% of Indians claimed they have implemented a fully modernised supply chain solution.

However, 51% in India believe that such cybersecurity mandates could result in complex government requirements that are outside budget limits. This could be related to a lack of implementation expertise, with 60% of Indians believing there is a lack of skillsets that hinders implementation.

Every three out of five respondents in India believed the government could provide more funding to organisations to improve cybersecurity, while 53% batted for better cooperation from the government on the investigation of attacks following their discovery.

In terms of what could help organisations in their fight against threat actors, 64% of the Indian cybersecurity professionals, preferred to procure data from the government regarding cybersecurity vulnerabilities, this was the highest among Japanese and Australians, with 61% and 56% saying they would prefer more data from the government.