Cybersecurity: The Challenges and the Solution

The most challenging year has pushed organizations and individuals to function differently and indulge in more digital engagement. With social distancing mode, everyone is loving the digital influencer in their daily lives. People can transact from any part of the world, enjoy entertainment at their house and communicate from any country. Just like advantages and disadvantages are two sides of the same coin, the digital or cyber world too has its own pros and cons. A lot of us tend to embrace the pros and ignore the cons. Though there is a fair amount of awareness about the importance of digitization and the threats looming over it, we fail to understand the kind of challenges that these dynamic changes have posed across various organizations. Through this blog, we throw some light on the challenges that the cyber world is facing. Just to clarify threats and challenges are two different aspects. Threats emerge because of the challenges.

We have identified and listed down below the challenges that the Digitized world is facing these days.

• Remote working setups: Many organizations declare work from home as the new normal. But they don’t realize that employees working via a personal network connection are more vulnerable to cyber threats. This is one of the major factors that crucial data gets compromised. Employees working from an office setup can function in a more protected environment with protocols and privacy policies in place. The organization has the right tools to restrict cyber threats but a work from a home ecosystem does not have this advantage.

• Evolving networks: Every day we see the evolution of new technology, apps or software. Though it feels great to witness such a growth, but people don’t realize that new technology brings in newer risks. There should be a vision and preparedness for identifying possible threats which can be curbed by organizations.

• Digital currencies like Crypto and Blockchain: Crypto and Blockchain have become a rage among investors. People have invested huge sums of money in Cryptocurrencies.  Indian crypto investments have increased to over $10 billion from $923 million in April 2020. This data clearly shows how much critical information like banking details, customer database, etc is available on the web. Such lucrative mediums as always in sight of hackers or scammers.

• Internet of Things (IoT): IoT is a network created by the connection of various physical objects with sensors that pass on the message and communicate. The bigger the network the more is the room for phishing and external threats to seep in and compromise the data.

• Digital scams: This is more of a challenge to individuals who know just the basics and are still learning about the digital space. Scams target individuals through e-mails, malicious/suspicious links. The perfect example is getting an email saying you have won a lottery worth XXXX amount. Such mails should immediately go into the trash and should not be opened. This is one of the most common challenges that cyber world faces.

• Heavy dependency on Mobile: The most used medium of digital engagement is the mobile. Everyone has a mobile that is used beyond calling and messaging. Be it a 10rs transaction or a 10000 rupee transaction, everyone does it with a single click. The digital influencer has spoilt people by helping them with monetary transactions happening in a jiffy. Mobile devices too pose a threat as spam callers connect with people requesting personal data like CVV, Card Number, etc which lead to great monetary losses.

With India ranking number second when it comes to internet users (Data shared by Statista), we must realize the importance to invest in Cyber security. While these threats are prevalent across every industry, it can be curbed by adapting to some quick solutions like:

• Invest in an upskilling and building of a cyber security team
• Raise awareness in the teams by educating and constant feeding of information on dos and donts
• Keep your systems updated. Download news updates and invest in new technology
• Data encryption can prevent data breaches

This clearly indicates that Cyber Security should be introduced as an essential topic at educational institutions. With a handful of people forming the workforce behind such critical job, we must realize that it is important to develop and hone skills of individuals to create a strong workforce that will guard our networks.