Operation Sindoor: Self-reliance is necessary for payment systems like the army, cyber expert warns

A senior cyber expert has expressed concern regarding India's dependence for cyber security for India's banking, financial services, and insurance (BFSI) industry. According to him, in the event of a war-like situation with a potent adversary, this dependence has the potential to prove to be a critical threat.

Comparing it with Operation Sindoor, SISA's founder and CEO Dharshan Shantamurthy said that just like how we effectively dealt with the threat of drones, the security of the digital payment environment is no less critical in a war situation.

"We have protected our digital payment ecosystem the way we did against drone attacks. I am confident we would have put in place strong protection against cyber attacks as well," he told PTI. Shantamurthy said Operation Sindoor was a big warning signal to achieve self-reliance in protecting India's financial system.

"This time the fight was against a weak military force, but if the same confrontation had been with a powerful country like China or a Western power, we would have had to protect our financial system at the same level," he said. He expressed concern that only 10 per cent of the cybersecurity products currently used by Indian companies are manufactured in the country. 

"Every medium-sized company uses 68 to 80 cybersecurity products, of which only 10 per cent are Indian." "In times of war or limited conflict, foreign companies may refuse to provide technology or updates, making our companies extremely vulnerable to cyber attacks." Shantamurthy said, "Operation Sindoor is a big wake-up call for us, which should strengthen our cyber defense capabilities."

It is worth noting that last month, SISA and CERT-IN released the "Digital Threat Report 2024" for the BFSI sector, which presented an analysis of emerging cyber threats and strategies to deal with them.