On February 28th, AMCHAM’s Eastern Region organized a virtual panel discussion on Cyber Hygiene. Mr. Sanjay Kumar Das, Joint Secretary, IT&E and State Information & Security Officer, Government West Bengal, was the chief guest and opened the discussions. He spoke about the policies that the government has put in place and discussed the various aspects of cyber hygiene. Ms. Priti Ray, Partner, Cyber & Strategic Services, Deloitte South Asia, moderated the session. The panelists included Prof. Triveni Singh, IPS, SP Cyber Crime, UP Police, Lucknow Uttra Pradesh, Mr. Vishak Raman, Director, Security Business, CISCO India & SAARC, Mr. Rakshit Tandon, Founder/Director, HackerShala/CodesNag, (Hackdev Technology Pvt Ltd.) Consultant – Internet and Mobile Association of India, Advisor – Cyber Peace Foundation and Dr. Davina Pruitt-Mentle, Lead for Academic Engagement, National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education (NICE).

Ms. Priti Ray, in her opening comments, spoke about the digital era which is enabled by super disruptors like mobile, analytics, cloud, social media, and the new exponentials like AI, genomics, connected homes, connected factories, connected and virtual healthcare and virtual reality, to name a few. She said that this was resulting in a digital surge and increased connectivity, which is giving rise to threats from hackers and activists. Organizations have experienced a huge spate of cyber attacks, be it social engineering attacks, phishing, ransomware attacks and identity thefts. She spoke about the rise in third party breaches, theft of intellectual property, compromised devices, etc. As much as 35% of breaches in 2020 came from TP breaches, compromised credentials, and cloud misconfiguration. She spoke about the Pandemic which has also given opportunity for sponsored attacks on targeted nations and states. She spoke about the exposure to vulnerability and said there is a need for instilling cyber hygiene practices be it in our daily lives when using social media, wearables, and connected devices, or when logging in from home or for protection of office or factory set ups.

Mr. Vishak Raman spoke about how he envisaged the cyber security industry moving and the trends that are being seen globally in cyber protection. He spoke about how during the pandemic, all organizations had to shift to remote working almost immediately and that security may have been compromised. However, over a period he said that these issues were addressed, and companies are managing to keep their remote infrastructure secure. He also touched upon how the role of technology in inculcating cyber hygiene practice among the users and give some advice on data protection. Mr. Rakshit Tandon spoke about how focusing on the younger generation was essential as they use of lot of social media and should know the netiquettes which were especially important. He discussed the vulnerabilities of downloading applications and the cyber hygiene that should be embraced by the netizens. Mr. Triveni Singh spoke about the latest trends in cyber crime and how the police were investigating it. He touched upon how the corporates, citizens and mostly sr. citizens were getting victimized and talked about his experience in solving these crimes. He said that there is a website for reporting cyber crimes and one can track the actions taken until there is a resolution.

Dr. Davina Pruitt Mentle spoke about the National Initiative for Cyber Security Education (NICE) and some of the key features of the NICE framework. NICE provides a set of building blocks for describing the tasks, knowledge, and skills that are needed for cybersecurity work performed by individuals and teams. Through these building blocks, the NICE Framework enables organizations to develop their workforces to perform cybersecurity work and it helps learners to explore cyber security work and to engage in appropriate learning activities to develop their knowledge and skills. Ms. Amada Kidwai, Regional Director – Eastern Region, AMCHAM introduced the speakers. Mr. Gulshan Sachdev, Chairman – Eastern Region, AMCHAM and Managing Director, Quaker Chemical, gave the welcome address while Mr. Joydeep Datta Gupta, Vice Chairman – Eastern Region, AMCHAM and Partner, Deloitte Touché Tohmatsu India LLP, gave the concluding remarks and vote of thanks.