At a cybersecurity summit organized by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Secretary of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), S. Krishnan, emphasized the need for allocating a minimum of 15% of the government IT budget to cybersecurity. Krishnan highlighted that cybersecurity should be an integral part of digital systems from the outset, rather than an afterthought, to ensure robust protection against cyber risks.
Krishnan urged the industry to prioritize cybersecurity by adopting a “security by design” approach in technology development and deployment. He also called for substantial investments in cybersecurity, promotion of domestic cybersecurity products, and timely reporting of cyber incidents to the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) to enhance collective defense and information sharing.
Dr. Amit Sharma, Additional Director General and Advisor at the Department of Defence, Ministry of Defence, underscored the importance of developing frontier AI models in response to the global pursuit of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). Sharma advocated for a proactive national strategy to navigate the evolving AI landscape and highlighted the Defence Research and Development Organisation’s (DRDO) efforts in foundational AI model creation.
Sharma further emphasized the necessity of transitioning to post-quantum cryptography as quantum computing advancements could render traditional cryptographic systems obsolete. Dr. Gulshan Rai, Chairman of the CII Cybersecurity Task Force and former National Cyber Security Coordinator, warned about the increased cyberattack surface due to the rapid expansion of technologies like 5G and upcoming 6G networks, affecting businesses of all sizes.
The Cybersecurity 360 Summit, a collaborative initiative by CII, MeitY, and CERT-In, convened policymakers, industry leaders, and cybersecurity experts to deliberate on strategies for enhancing India’s digital resilience in the face of evolving global cyber threats.
