Cos should invest more than 10% of IT assets in cybersecurity: Rajesh Pant

Companies should invest more than 10% of the value of their information technology (IT) assets in cybersecurity, a top Indian cyber security official said on Monday. 

“With the advent of 5G, we expect the 5 billion internet users to reach 25 billion by the end of this year and therefore, companies must invest in security… never compromise on the security part,” said National Cyber Security Coordinator lieutenant general (Retired) Rajesh Pant said at the 17th India Digital Summit organised by the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI).  The two-day summit is being held in New Delhi on 20 and 21 February, 2023  

Highlighting the three hard truths of cyber security, namely vulnerability, cyber-attacks, and attribution, he said that countries like China and Russia were driving a split in the internet due to geopolitical reasons. As a result, cybersecurity too has assumed geopolitical dimensions. 

Pant also touched upon the concept of ‘splinternet’ which involves the breaking off or ‘splintering’ of the internet into several fragmented pieces. The division of the internet can be caused by religion, politics, technology, commerce and national interest. Each fragment is governed by different regulations, resulting in multiple parallel internets that are not connected to one another. 

"Because of this splinternet and lack of cooperation between nations, criminals are taking advantage. Today, there are no international laws and regulations which help the agencies for solving cybercrimes," he said. 

 “The World Economic Forum has been saying that cybercrime is the biggest manmade risk to the economic progress of a nation. Last year the total loss was estimated to be $6 trillion,” Pant mentioned. 

Talking about international-level solutions for cybercrime, Pant noted that an international task force for countering cybercrimes has been formed with the likes of Australia and the US. "This task force and the International Criminal Police Organization, commonly known as Interpol recently infiltrated a crime ring on the dark web, preventing a $150 million loss to a corporate," he said.

According to a report published by market research firm Gartner on 14 February, end user spending on security and risk management is set to touch $2.65 billion in 2023, according to research by Gartner. The company said that security spending will grow by 8.3% as compared to 2022.

At the Gartner Security & Risk Management Summit held on the same day, Deepti Gopal, director analyst and Christopher Mixter, vice president (Research) at Gartner, said that through 2023, government regulations requiring organisations to provide consumer privacy rights will cover 5 billion citizens and over 70% of the global gross domestic product. 

The researchers also said that by 2025, 60% of organisations will use cybersecurity risk as a primary determinant for conducting business engagements.