In an interaction with CIO AXIS, Mohit Kalra, Head of Information Security, ORIX India, talked about some of the key cybertrends and outlined cybersecurity sector’s growth potential in 2021.
1. What are your proposals to accelerate the digital transformation of companies and return to a new post-pandemic normal?
One thing is quite clear from this pandemic, that you can support 3rd pillar of CIA triad only if you are on Cloud. Core Business must never be stopped due to any such future interruption, thus plan accordingly, and move to ?AAS based model asap, or else IT function will no longer be termed as business enabler.
Starting from AntiVirus, Patch Management and other basic hygiene factors, all deployments and updates must happen via Internet/On-Cloud agents.
As we shift into Cloud environment, focus should be there on finding right match of MDM solutions, which actually doing Sandboxing for all critical applications (not only E-Mails or messaging).
In short, there must be Ctrl+H for “On Premises” with “Cloud”.
2. Can you please share some of the unique lessons learned from Covid-19?
In the past 9 months, you must have seen how organizations (across various sectors) are transporting Desktops into Employee’s home just to support day to day operations. This can be avoided if all critical users are provided with Laptops with multi factor authentication VPN which are nowadays integrated with Firewalls itself (even if they are still continuing with “On-Prem” terminology).
3. What technologies and trends will your organization be focusing on 2021?
I am not talking about mine or any particular organization, but all should be focussed on deploying “Anytime Anywhere” model, for E-Mail, messaging and critical applications. Implementing Security Controls for BYOD should be on priority.
In between, our focus should not be diverted from the fact that we need to prepare ourselves for Indian Data Privacy regulation Act/Guidelines (in addition to GDPR if applicable), thus attention must be given to protect Individual’s personal information.
4. How will the cybersecurity sector look in a post-COVID-19 world? What do you expect to be different when it comes to cybersecurity and hiring in a post-COVID-19 world?
With the rapid increase of cybercrimes and incidents hampering end user/individual via phishing/vishing/smishing/ransomware etc., Cyber Security as a sector only has to grow, and Talent-Acquisition should be performed on the basis of learning attitude and on the aspirant’s mindset of Information Security. Integrity will always be on priority while screening.
Disclaimer: These are the personal views of Mohit Kalra only for betterment of Information Security Practices across the organizations and has nothing to do with current practices getting followed in Orix India.