DSCI’s Annual Cyber Security Summit urges privacy and data protection readiness

Nasscom’s Data Security Council of India (DSCI) recently concluded the 12th edition of its flagship cyber security event, the Annual Information Security Summit (AISS), held in Delhi. AISS is one of the coveted industry summits focused on contemporary and futuristic technologies to address global and national cyber security challenges. This year there was a special focus on privacy, data protection and emerging technologies.

According to DSCI, over 150 speakers in 60 sessions participated in plenaries, debates, keynotes, visionary talks, in-depth workshops, and roundtables showcasing security-driven deliberations. This year’s summit was bigger in scale and participation. The major focus of the three-day event revolved around innovation and entrepreneurship, cognitive security, digital payments, capacity building, malware/APTs, product security, DevSecOps, data protection/GDPR, security journalism, forensics etc.

A glimpse of the few interesting sessions included machine learning for cyber security, crypto debate, scope and future of digital forensics, security design thinking, potent and wider cyber attacks, cyber security framework for smart cities, SMBs embracing digital evolution, demystifying cybercrime strategy for corporate and more underscored the discussions at AISS 2017.

Other highlights included ‘SEGAMATHON – Security Gamification Hackathon’, simulations, demo theater, roast sessions and student zone. DSCI Excellence Awards were hosted to recognize best practices adopted by the industry, exemplary work carried out in the field of security and privacy, and reward visionary leaders. It also conducted DSCI ‘Innovation Box’ for identifying the ‘Most Innovative Security Product of the Year’.

Rama Vedashree, CEO, DSCI said, “DSCI continues to innovate to make AISS an enriching experience for the security leadership and entire ecosystem that spans nascent startups to global leaders, and customers spanning every enterprise vertical and government. This year we are bringing a special focus on strategic and design thinking to the domain of cyber security and deliberations on use cases and innovation agenda.”

Speaking at the inaugural ceremony of AISS, Raman Roy, Chairman, NASSCOM said, “This year at AISS, privacy and data protection can’t be the only focus, but also other areas too. One is EU GDPR and Industry Readiness and the recent Privacy Judgment. The data protection law will be a reality sooner than later. This is one area where both IT industry and user enterprises have to gear up their readiness to adopt the best practices of privacy, data protection, privacy by design principles and

privacy assessments to benchmark themselves. This is one area where DSCI took the lead with its focus on data protection/privacy and its privacy certification. I urge DSCI and the Privacy Leader’s Community here to help our industry and user industry to gear up their privacy readiness.”

The event also talked about cyber security skills. NASSCOM and DSCI are focused on skills development and curriculum development for few job roles. But skills gap in cyber security, both in industry and academia, is worrying. Industry-Academia collaboration is happening in a very sporadic fashion; and similarly Industry-User Enterprise collaboration to bridge this gap. “As NASSCOM initiates its broader Skills of Future Program, we would put special focus on cyber security,” added Raman.

NASSCOM and DSCI, under the leadership of Cyber Security Task Force envisioned a charter – US$ 35 billion, 1000 startups, one million in the workforce by 2025. To drive this ambitious vision, DSCI wants to make security in India by growing Indian startups and product companies. Another big area in which DSCI is betting big is cyber security services – this is one area, where it is witnessing potential large IT services growing their cyber security portfolio and also niche security services firms like cyber defense centers/cyber fusion centers, SCADA security and advance forensics.

DSCI’s objective is to act as a catalyst for startups working in the cyber security space to come up with more innovative product ideas and address real risks, build resilience, increase the trustworthiness and create a conducive environment for businesses. Nine startups were selected for the ‘Most Innovative Product of the Year’ at the AISS 2017 to provide impetus to budding security product companies. Lucideus Technologies and Security Brigade were announced winners and AppsPicket occupied the runner-up spot at the awards night during AISS 2017. The initiative is an attempt to provide support to product companies in various aspects by bringing these new players nearer to established security leaders, innovators and other stakeholders on a common platform for idea sharing, guidance and collaboration.