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A top cybersecurity executive has warned about the risks of relying heavily on imports to secure the banking, financial services, and insurance sector, stating that it could be vulnerable if India were to engage in a conflict with a powerful adversary.
Drawing parallels with Operation Sindoor, Dharshan Shanthamurthy, founder and CEO of SISA, a cybersecurity solutions company, emphasized that defending India’s banking and financial services sector is equally important in times of conflict as any attack on the payment ecosystem could have a crippling effect.
“We did equally well in terms of defending our digital payment ecosystem, like the way we have defended against drone attacks. I’m sure we would have defended against cyber attacks as well,” Shanthamurthy told PTI.
He stated that Operation Sindoor should serve as a wake-up call for achieving self-reliance in defending India’s financial services ecosystem. “Now it was an inferior armed force. But if such a conflict is against a formidable armed force such as China or any other western power, we should be able to defend our financial ecosystem equally well,” Shanthamurthy said.
Currently, less than 10% of cybersecurity products used by various enterprises are of Indian origin. “Every medium-sized enterprise uses 68-80 cybersecurity products, of which only 10% are made in India,” Shanthamurthy said, adding that in times of war or limited conflict, there is always a possibility of denial of technology or updates for cybersecurity products, leaving various enterprises in the country vulnerable to attacks.
“Operation Sindoor is a really good wake-up call for us to increase and level up our cyber defense,” he said.
Last month, SISA and CERT-IN released the Digital Threat Report-2024 for the banking, financial services, and insurance sector, highlighting emerging cyber threats and offering practical strategies for emulating and mitigating these risks.
