Key Trends Changing the Course of Internet Security in India in 2024

It’s true to say that cybersecurity has become among the most vital components of India’s technological progress. Well, the country has been coming up with measures that ensure that digital assets are kept safe from cyber threats in a bid to pursue digital transformation.

You see, the cybersecurity market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 13.9% between 2024 and 2029 to reach a market volume of US$5,29 in 2029. These stats have been brought forth in a report by Statista. And by the way, did you know that India has the second-largest number of internet users globally? This probably makes a lot of sense considering the huge population in the country.

Actually, another report by Statista reveals that currently, in 2024, there are over 900 million internet users. What might come as shocking news is that even though there is a consistent increase in accessibility, internet penetration was just a little over 50%. That’s actually below the global average!

Cybersecurity threats

Well, because of the growing cybersecurity market and increasing internet penetration, it is vital that the people of India operate in safe environments. Having website trust check tools is especially vital in order to curb common cyber attacks. By having such tools, you can be able to see attacks from a long way ahead.

You see, the India Cyber Threat report 2023 by the Data Security Council of India reveals that cybersecurity threats are quite high. The report shows that there were over 400 million threat detections across roughly 8.5 million endpoints. To put that into perspective, those are an average of 761 threat detections per minute. How crazy.

As if that were not enough, NDTV reported that there were over 79 million cyber attacks in 2023. Actually, the country was ranked the third-largest country in terms of phishing attacks, right after the US and UK.

Government policies and initiatives

However, you should understand that India is performing really strongly, being ranked as a Tier 1 with countries like Japan, the US and Japan. You see, this is because of the robust legal framework initiated by the government, e.g., through the ITA 2000. This information is clearly elaborated in a report by Drishti IAS.

Other actions that the government has taken are introducing the National Cyber Security Policy and establishing the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C). All these initiatives and policies have helped the country strengthen its expansion of digital tech.

The expansion of zero-trust architecture

The zero trust model takes an approach that relies on the mantra, “never trust, always verify.” The principle of this architecture assumes that no device is trustworthy, even if it is connected to a network or principle.

With ZTA, the assumption is that there are always threats and that any attempt to access the network is a security threat. With this, the architecture requires to verify everyone who is trying to access the system. Well, this tech is mostly used by organisations that have sensitive data. In fact, that makes it almost all organisations since no company lacks sensitive data.

ZTA stands on seven pillars, which are:

• Ensuring device security
• Securing the workforce
• Securing network pathways
• Safeguarding workload integrity
• Streamlining automation and orchestration
• Enhancing visibility and leveraging analytics
• Zero-trust data protection

Different companies and organisations in the country have been implementing this technology, resulting in better security.

Focus on supply chain security

Modern supply chains have been seeing an increase in vulnerabilities because of their interconnected nature. Because of that, organisations are giving top priority to the security of their supply chains and implementing effective risk management methods.

Actually, a major trend that is being adopted across the supply chain industry is the use of blockchain technology. You see, blockchain technology is being used to provide the much needed transparency across the supply chain. Again, blockchain uses cryptography and distributed ledgers which ensures that data remains secure and unaltered.

A number of startups have already incorporated this technology, and it is proving to be worth it. Some of these companies in India that provide blockchain-based solutions include:

• TrusTrace
• NAKAD
• Statwig
• Priority Vendor
• Trace X

Evolution of multifactor authentication (MFA)

There is a very good chance that you have interacted with MFA or 2FA. If you don’t already know what this is, then let’s give a brief description. MFA is an authenticator that requires the users to only access a website or app after submitting two forms of identity evidence. With this, there is another layer of security that is created making it almost impossible for malicious players to access your information.

Now, despite this security system being highly reliable and considered by many people, companies like Microsoft are urging people to desist from using SMS and voice authentication because of their increased security risk. You see, SMS is an unencrypted messaging service which makes it pretty easy to hack. However, for your safety, don’t you dare discard SMS authentication if you don’t have any other method.

Conclusion

Looking at various statistics, we can all agree that India is quickly becoming a haven for internet users. Well, even as internet use goes up, users should be quite vigilant to ensure that they don’t fall victim to cybersecurity threats. Anyway, it is safe to say that with the current trends, we can expect to see more secure platforms and organisations in the country.