India to create a taskforce of 5,00,000 cyber security professionals

India ranks 3rd    in terms of the highest number of internet users in the world after USA and China, the number is projected to grow 6-fold between 2012-2017 with a compound annual growth rate of 44%. India also secures a spot  amongst the top 10 spam-sending countries in the world alongside USA

·India has a huge shortage of cyber security specialists, the number of trained manpower only accounts to 556 compared to 1.25 Lakh in China and 91,080 in USA


· 2,876  cyber crime cases were registered under the IT Act last year , this number rose by 61% compared to 1,791 cases registered in 2011. The state of Maharashtra recorded the most number of cases

· In April 2013, the Union government rolled out a central monitoring system (CMS) which will enable it to monitor all phone and internet  communication in the country

Cyber crime has been affecting individuals as well as organizations in the country and the world over. There have been several instances of systems getting hacked in both private and public sectors which calls for an urgent need to contain this crime and secure the country from it. In view of the same, the Government of India came up with two initiatives in the month of July 2013 to counter cyber crime:

Releasing the National Cyber Security Policy of India (NCSP) followed by the release of guidelines by the National Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Centre of the National Technical Research Organization (NTRO), the country’s elite technical intelligence agency. One of the key agenda’s of the National Cyber Security Policy of India is to create a taskforce of 5,00,000 cyber security professionals in the next five years. Public and private sector partnership(PPP) is  also seen as a key step  to counter cyber crime, the mutual co-ordination will bring about the following improvisations:

·         Conduct Consultation Workshops
·         Share cyber intelligence
·         Fund research programmes
·         Develop capacity building and training centres
·         Collaboration during cyber attacks


It is an utmost need for enterprises, SMEs and the government bodies to not only adopt the various guidelines and advisories issued by the security agencies but also to regularly review the implementation of the same. There needs to be a timely review of the IT act to keep pace with the developments and sophistications in cyber crime. Apart from consulting private sectors and cyber security equipment manufactures , international coordination is also something that India needs to consider in the days to come to counter cyber attacks more effectively and efficiently. The implementation of all these aspects together will be  a challenge that needs to be dealt with precision to secure the critical infrastructure of the country.

Please let us know if you want to speak to Mr Naveen Agarwal, Partner, KPMG India on the subject matter. We will be happy to connect you with the spokesperson.

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