At the Third BW Businessworld Digital India Summit today in Taj Palace, SK Bhagat was on the panel discussing ‘Ensuring Physical & Cyber Security for Digitally Empowered Nation.’ The other panelists were other esteemed panelists such as M Nagarajan, Anil Kumar Singh, Vikas Yadav, Dr Sunil Gupta and Sudhir Mishra. Golok Simli acted as the Moderator of this panel discussion.
Bhagat mentioning physical security in terms of Railway said, “Around 2.8 crore people travel via trains and there are 7,000 stations available in the nation. In spite of everything, there remains a possibility for a terrorist attack to happen.”
“Landmark efforts are required if we hope to avoid such attacks. Solutions from the private sector will aid in security against physical and cyber-attacks,” he said. He also emphasized on the availability of the railway app for people to use. Quoting PM Narendra Modi he added, “Railway offers both Gati (speed) and Pragati (progress) to the nation.”
Dr Sunil Gupta, CIO Ministry of Steel, Government of India; discussed the different perspectives and objectives of physical and cyber security. “It is important on how quickly you combat and get over with a cyber attack. The primary focus should solely be on combating the attack,” Mr. Gupta said in a statement.
“Physical barriers are the integrated part of cyber security, however there is a need to increase security consciousness,” cautioned Vikas Yadav, Director of the IT and Cyber Security of Indian Government.
“We need to work 24/7 for the prevention of attacks,” commented Vijay Kohli who is the Asia-Pacific & Japan Regional Business Manager of AKAMAI.
M Nagarajan, CEO of the Surat Smart City Development Limited said that India has the knack to adapt and with threats, awareness has also paced up. “We need to fasten the process,” he added.
Winding the panel discussion Sudhir Mishra, Founder and Managing Partner of Trust Legal gave prominence to laws surrounding data protection, mentioning that India lacks a strong IT Act that prevails in US and the EU.