Development of smart cities with more dependence on computers and involvement of private players for augmenting various facilities will pose a challenge to cyber security, according to assistant vice-president of Phoenix IT Solutions Ltd Sharada Garimella.
She was speaking at a discussion conducted by the Visakhapatnam zone of Confederation of Indian Industry.
Ms. Garimella said smart cities would pave the way for a bigger role for private players under Public Private Participation for designing, landscaping, management of traffic signalling, and various other facilities.
Stating that India had 213 million mobile users, she said as the Internet and smartphone penetration was increasing, cyber fraudsters were adopting new methodologies to indulge in looting, terrorism, and corrupting various vital installations.
She said, at present, there was no fool-proof mechanism to protect the systems and networks of industries.
“The onus lies on them and they have to invest liberally on security measures,” she opined. Ms. Garimella said the World Economic Forum was in the process of evolving certain standards for compliance by the industries on the lines of ISO certification and advised people to change their passwords periodically.
DCP (Crime) T. Ravi Kumar Murthy said hackers, who had confined their activity to individuals by luring them with online lottery offers and hacking their vital credit card and debit card data to indulge in crime, were now targeting industrial establishments.
He said cyber crime was being committed now by using IT as a tool by hacking data from smartphones, computers, and networks, and mentioned how hackers laid access to data by creating a SIM card of a seafood exporter, who had connected his mobile to his office system. He said fraudsters could get one time passwords (OTP) and indulge in transactions to the tune of Rs.85 lakh in two days.
Going by the threat dimension, India needed a national cyber security policy to prevent cyber attacks, he said.
Associate Director PwC-India Girish H.A., CII Vizag zone vice-chairman V. Muralikrishna, and local unit head K. Ganeshan were present.
