Make allocation for cybersecurity

The upsurge of digital transformation is no doubt a boost to the economy but it is also pushing India towards a greater cyber-risk. To ride the next wave of innovation and safeguard its critical assets from perilous cyber-attacks, India needs to upgrade its cyber architecture through a robust strategy. The Union Budget 2017 highlighted the significance of cyber security through initiatives such as proposal of a dedicated Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) for the financial services sector, regulation of digital payments, etc.

With a myriad cyber-attacks and data breaches in 2017 and growing digitisation, it is expected that the government will fine tune the upcoming Budget for the changing threat landscape and will come up with more reforms. With such separate budgetary allocation towards cybersecurity, the cyber-roots are expected to become stronger. Steps towards building an institution to oversee, monitor and regulate digital infrastructure will strengthen the cybersecurity posture of our country. Definite investments should be made for cyber security training, mock drills, threat-detection, security analytics and perimeter defences that will enhance the overall security.

Also, the new GST information architecture has created a hitherto unimaginable database of tax-paying businesses, creating a treasure trove of credit data. In the wake of cyber incidents, especially related to data leakage, cybersecurity provision key government initiatives could get separate funding in the union Budget 2018. Likewise, with forecasts such as digital payments projected to supersede cash by 2022, there may be special provisions for the financial institutions and digital payment systems in the budget to safeguard the various digitisation schemes concentrating especially on the need of securing the critical infrastructure. The cyber budget may focus on intrusion detection and prevention system; continuous diagnostics and mitigation programmes and network resilience. The Budget, additionally, should call for increases in cybersecurity-related spending at the law and justice departments to handle such incidents effectually.

It is also anticipated that an amount of more than Rs 1,500 crore will be divided between the electronics and information technology ministry for more focus on the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-IN) and the home ministry for counter-terrorism cyber cells. This will be a necessary step to promote cross-sector and critical infrastructure relationships/ partnerships for cyber-security. Additionally, such reforms will empower CERT-IN to enhance their process of collection, analysis, forecast and co-ordination of cyber security incidents.

The introduction of new cyber security reforms will address issues related to secure guidelines, advisories, forensics, technology enablement's and vulnerability, thereby enhancing the nation-wide cyber security incident response mechanism and making it more effective. Developing cybersecurity standards to increase security of civilian, corporate and national networks is also expected through the added emphasis in the Budget. Also, the amount may also go into creating treaties with International organizations / countries which might have data/ data servers of Indian data.budget

Different industry verticals have budding pain points in terms of cyber security. Protection and prevention, trailed by detection and response, are the priority areas for everyone in today's era. The industrialists are looking forward to the union budget 2018 and there are high hopes that the government will put more emphasis on cyber security allocations considering the current challenges and requirements.

Jaspreet Singh, partner – cyber security, EY