Indian Cybersecurity Turf: A 2020 Position Paper

Abstract

In sharp contrast to countries like Singapore and the United States of America where a single national entity deals with their cybersecurity issues, India has as many as 36 central organizations to safeguard her cyberspace provincial mechanisms apart. Further, India was amongst the first few nation-states to adopt a National Cyber Security Policy, yet little has changed on the digital security turf since its propounding in the year 2013. In light of more and more common place Indian citizens
(read non-tech savvy) using electronic services for financial transactions post demonetization in November 2016, the Ministry of Home Affairs, Govt. of India, in December 2018 has outlined the measures to strengthen the country’s cybersecurity pastures. Sensing a little success of 2013 policy and ascension of new challenges like cloud services, use of artificial intelligence in foiling the security measures and general data protection requirements as per global standards, a National
Cybersecurity Strategy 2020 has been drafted and adopted to replace the 2013 Cyber Security Policy. The proposed strategy is entrusted to safeguard the security and trust of the cybersecurity infrastructure of the country and ensure its robustness and resilience for the next 5 years. This study examines the horizons of cybersecurity in terms of the ever-expanding cyber world, proportionate attacks, and threats to cybersecurity, and counter-measures in place to deal with the increasingly sophisticated cybersecurity threats.