Interviews

Making an impact with Digital Trust for a better tomorrow

The key to security is putting people first. Every secure transaction starts with a person. So digital security shouldn’t be hard! It should relieve worry, not cause it. Users’ trust in digital security is a foundation of their confidence in people, technology, and processes.
According to a recent study by IDC, more than 70% of Indian companies plan to invest heavily in digital trust programs over the next two years to ensure long-term success and resilience. DigiCert’s mission is to strengthen digital trust across the world, and as a global leader in security solutions, it facilitates market development, global standards, delivers compliance and operations, manages certificates for public and private trust, and extends trust into supply chains and connected ecosystems.  Mr. Sarabjeet Khurana, Country Manager,  India & SAARC, DigiCert in a discussion with CXO today shared more insights on the same.

 

  1. Why is there a gap between IT capabilities and business needs in India in a digital world?

The pandemic has accelerated the pace of digital transformation. Remote work is increasing, and remote access to critical infrastructure such as manufacturing and plants is on the rise. For years now, companies have been trending towards more digital business, with online banking, more online shopping, and companies seeking to connect devices to the internet as part of what we call IoT (internet of things). Thus, the surface area increases and attacks can happen more frequently.

In many cases, IT can’t hire enough people and the needed skillset is evolving. While the people involved in businesses can become the first line of defense for the company, more visibility for cybersecurity at the boardroom level is still needed to help prioritize key initiatives, though this is on the rise.

Additionally, there is a strong need to further strengthen the alignment and synergy between the IT Industry and academic framework to churn out resources who have in-depth understanding of today’s business challenges and current IT capabilities to better address an organization’s needs.

Overall, the gap exists primarily because change is happening so quickly. With the rapid pace of digitisation, companies need to keep up their pace of improving data skills and investing in the correct infrastructure to protect mission-critical data.

2. How can businesses boost their processes and infrastructure to keep up with digital security?

As businesses are responsible for protecting the digital identity and trust of their employees, partners, customers and extended communities, companies must now be thinking about digital trust as an executive-level IT imperative. With the exponential growth in connectivity, digital trust must be embedded in IT architectures that are themselves more complex. Cloud services, hybrid workloads and IT/OT convergence have changed the shape of what is connected and what is not. DevOps and CI/CD pipelines have blurred the boundaries between traditional IT operations and development. Remote work, fueled by the pandemic, has increased the method and manner of corporate access and provisioning. And zero trust network architectures have materially expanded the types of things that need to be authenticated and secured.

Companies should thus consider digital trust as a strategic imperative to prevent and protect against cybersecurity threats. It is a necessary component of digital transformation, enabling companies to transfer critical processes online and create new forms of inter-organization connection. With digital trust embedded in IT infrastructure, companies will be able to take on  interactions, transactions or business processes, more confidently.  Companies that are strategically investing in digital trust will be able to position themselves as stewards of a secure, connected world.

3. On what grounds can Indian businesses look at to keep up with the security needs of the modern digital world?

Establishing successful digital trust requires a thoughtful approach. The building blocks of digital trust include: shaping industry standards, assuring excellence in compliance and operations, providing certificate lifecycle management for public and private trust, and extending trust into supply chains and connected ecosystems. DigiCert provides this holistic approach and a platform to manage digital trust. We make cyber security business processes easier for companies operating within India, as well as Indian companies looking to do business outside the country. DigiCert® ONE, the platform for digital trust, provides organizations with centralized visibility and control over a broad range of public and private trust needs, securing websites, enterprise access and communication, software, identity, content and devices. Businesses can rely upon our solutions and our partners in India to help them succeed.

4. What are the emerging trends in the security landscape, Indian businesses need to be cognizant of?

  • Increase in sophistication of ransomware, malware and cybersecurity threats: With the rise of digital processes, growth of connected devices, and attackers getting emboldened with counter-productive mechanisms, threats will get more sophisticated with the increased capabilities to paralyze critical business processes. Companies need to turn their focus to best practices for upgraded security measures and need to boost security operations within the organizational talent. Attacks on critical infrastructure and connected devices with poor authentication schemes will be most vulnerable in the times to come.
  • Remote work is on the rise: With automated processes becoming key to reduce dependence on manual closure of activities, remote work will grow as a trend. This will translate to a need for greater digital trust, with authentication of remote workers and protecting their exchanged data to the best of levels through a zero-trust approach.
  • Growth of connected devices: Increasing connectivity and digital transformation leads to expanded surface area needing to be protected from attacks. With more and more devices and endpoints getting connected in IoT, IT staffs will have more points to secure than is manually possible, leading to automated security procedures. With the coming of 5G technology in India, IoT will be boosted, inviting more attacks. For data-driven use cases like the IoT, digital trust is more important than ever.
  • Increase in complexity to secure supply chain: With workflows focused on pushing deliverables at faster pace, rather than security by design, the attack surface will only grow. Through digital trust best practices like digital security certificates and code signing, companies can integrate security into each stage of the development process.
  • Moving to a sovereign multi-cloud environment will create newer cybersecurity demands: In a rising trend of moving to multi-cloud environments, businesses will be seeing that traditional security processes will become obsolete. With businesses catering to a locally administered cloud solution monitored by sovereign security blueprints, businesses will need to be cognizant of regional security requirements.
  • Employee education on security: Organizations, globally, are taking time and investing into programs which will enable their talent to identify, detect and respond to threats like malwares, ransomwares and phishing attacks. Indian business leaders should take note and adopt a framework to upskill employees through online training and cyber simulation exercises to help C-level participants test their communication strategies and decision-making in the event of a major cybersecurity crisis

5. What are the key areas DigiCert is looking at in India? How is DigiCert expected to perform in an increasingly evolving market?

As the world’s leading provider of digital trust, as well as the leader in India, DigiCert is very well positioned for continued success, working with its partners in India. We understand that India has its own particular needs and that is why we have employees and partners in India to offer the world’s best technology, together with a local touch.

Our growth in India has been very consistent and encouraging over the past decade. We have a very impressive track record on acquiring and retaining marquee customers across all the market/industry segments. In India, our channel partners play a major role. In collaboration with our partners and other stakeholders we are planning to invest in making our customers and prospects increasingly aware of the importance of embracing best-in-class technologies and solutions, to prepare and win against increasing cyber threats.

Our vision is to continue to lead and expand the digital trust market, to help customers succeed through the building blocks that we offer, as well as continued innovation to always stay ahead of evolving cyber security threats. We are excited about our growth opportunities, alongside the continued emergence of India as an economic power in the world.

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