Cybersecurity Sovereignty: IT Secretary Keynote

New Delhi, Dec 4 (PTI) Sovereign interests are extremely important in cybersecurity, and only products developed in the country can be relied upon, Electronics and IT secretary S Krishnan said on Thursday.

While speaking at Nasscom-DSCI Annual Information Security Summit (AISS), Krishnan expressed concern over entities that are reluctant to spend on cybersecurity.

"In cybersecurity, more than in any other area, our sovereign interests are extremely important. Autonomy and sovereignty are extremely important. You can't trust anybody else in the world to give you a product which will not have a backdoor.

"Globally, any country would be under their own pressure, would have their own reasons as to why they would put in a backdoor in favour of somebody or the other. You will be left searching for it all the time. Today, for us, it's become very important," Krishnan said.

He said that the mindset of entities in India has not changed much yet and they continue to spend less on cyber security.

"Our mindset, much as we realise that we need to look at security right from the beginning, hasn't changed entirely yet. We are still reluctant to spend adequately on cyber security under any circumstances," Krishnan said.

He said that the government has taken steps to ensure CCTV and telecom network gear are sourced from safe and trusted sources which will be expanded to many more products gradually.

"What we need to go along with that is homegrown talent, homegrown products-- which we can trust, which we can use. That is the opportunity which is increasingly coming up. For that to become a reality, we have to make sure that we have a home market which is large enough and which is significant enough to support this," Krishnan said.

According to an annual report released by Data Security Council of India (DSCI), there are 400 cybersecurity product companies in India that have a collective revenue of USD 4.46 billion in 2025, which is expected to grow to USD 6 billion by 2026.

Krishnan said that the government alone cannot solve everything in the technology space and industry along with other stakeholders need to jointly work.