Australia-India Cybersecurity International Symposium Ignites Collaborative against Cyber Threats for Secured Tomorrow

(L-R): Dr. Deepak Kumar Sahu, Editor-in-chief-VARINDIA, Dr.Biswajit Mohapatra, Head of Customer Solutions Management, India and South Asia, AWS; Prof. Ranjan Bose, Director of IIIT Delhi; Prof. (Dr.) Kamaljeet Sandhu, Australian Principal Investigator/ Director, Australia-India Hub; Prof. (Dr.) Amlan Chakrabarti, Director School of IT University of Calcutta & Visiting Professor - IIIT Delhi; Lata Singh, Partner- GIC Strategic Partner Leader - IBM Consulting; Shikha Srivastava, Director and Board Member, Centre for Development of Telematics; Aditya Kumar Sinha, Director - CDAC Kolkata & Patna; Prashant Chugh, Group Leader - C-DOT; Somsubhra Gupta, Dean - Swami Vivekanada University

The Australia-India Cybersecurity International Symposium, a gathering of distinguished participants from across the country and abroad, convened to delve into the critical realms of cybersecurity and its implications on the rapidly evolving landscape of technological innovation. The symposium served as a platform for experts to discuss the pressing need for robust cybersecurity measures in the face of escalating cyber threats. 

In an era where technological advancements drive progress, it is imperative to address the escalating risks posed by data breaches and cyberattacks. The symposium emphasized the significance of safeguarding data not only to prevent financial losses but also to maintain trust among customers and business partners. As organizations increasingly embrace technologies such as IoT, blockchain, AI, and ML, it becomes essential to implement comprehensive security measures to protect digital assets and ensure the integrity and confidentiality of operations. 

The symposium kick-started with the lamp-lighting ceremony, setting the tone for collaborative efforts to create a secure digital future. 

The event featured an impressive lineup of speakers, including Prof. (Dr.) Amlan Chakrabarti, Director School of IT University of Calcutta & Visiting Professor - IIIT Delhi; Prof. (Dr.) Kamaljeet Sandhu, Australian Principal Investigator/Director, Australia-India Hub; Prof. Ranjan Bose, Director of IIIT Delhi; Dr. Gulshan Rai, Former National Cyber Security Coordinator & Former DG, CERT-In, Govt. of India; Shikha Srivastava, Director and Board Member, Centre for Development of Telematics; Biswajit Mohapatra, Head of Customer Solutions Management, India and South Asia, Amazon Web Services India Private Limited; Aditya Kumar Sinha, Director - CDAC Kolkata & Patna and many more. Their insights shed light on the growing threat of cybercrime and the necessity for collective action. 

The topic of the first Technical session was “Cyber security in the New Age Technology domains” which was moderated by Prof. (Dr.) Amlan Chakrabarti, Director School of IT University of Calcutta & Visiting Professor - IIIT Delhi. The panelists of the session were Lata Singh, Partner- GIC Strategic Partner Leader - IBM Consulting; Biswajit Mohapatra, Head of Customer Solutions, CIO Advisory, India and South Asia – AWS; Prashant Chugh, Group Leader - C-DOT and Swati Meherishi, Editorial Director, Applied Sciences & Engineering - Springer Nature. 

The 2nd Technical session, themed “Cyber security in the New Age Technology domains” was moderated by Prof. (Dr.) Kamaljeet Sandhu, Australian Principal Investigator/Director, Australia-India Hub. The panelists for the session were Prof. Sanjiva Prasad, Professor Department of CSE, IIT Delhi; Prof. Jyoti Gautam, Chair IWA-Digital Water India; Somsubhra Gupta, Dean - Swami Vivekanada University and Mrityunjay Ghosh, Quantum Computing Principal - HCL Technologies.

The symposium highlighted the collaborative nature of cybersecurity, emphasizing that it is a shared responsibility. It called for collective action to protect organizations from cyber threats. As the event concluded, participants were urged to implement cybersecurity best practices, stay informed about the latest threats, and work towards creating a safer digital world. The Australia-India Cybersecurity International Symposium proved to be an insightful and collaborative platform, fostering a shared commitment to cybersecurity and paving the way for a more secure digital future.

Prof. (Dr.) Amlan Chakrabarti  
Director School of IT University of Calcutta & Visiting Professor - IIIT Delhi  

“The leading researchers in our country are trying to figure out what are the directions of Indian researchers in cybersecurity and what are the challenges that Indian cyber security researchers are facing. The entire motivation behind this discussion is to find some of the four or five, top level directions where we can actually focus on and then submit this charter to the common group and then look in for a bigger project and the greater involvement of all of the industry leaders.”

Prof. (Dr.) Kamaljeet Sandhu  
Australian Principal Investigator/ Director, Australia-India Hub 

“Australia-India cybersecurity hub is basically strengthening our relationship as this platform brings people together. One thing more important above technology is people. Everytime I talk around the world I would say one thing, which is technology will always be influenced by people.  When we look at the security side of IT, we as the leaders have more understanding of it.  The Hub provides the digital platform to connect with each other.”

Dr. Deepak Kumar Sahu  
Editor-in-chief, VARINDIA    

"Cyber security is required where anything is digital or online. Digitization across industries is increasing and you can say all security requirements are going to increase manifold. By adding AI part to this, it becomes still more complex. The traditional approach of maintaining baseline security, is what I think is a trend, because there is uncertainty, and we cannot predict the future. Particularly, regulations are critical to the industry. So, regulation plays an important part. Compliance is what we should be looking at only once because those regulatory bodies also take care of these things. Our prime focus should be compliance."

Dr. Gulshan Rai  
Former National Cyber Security Coordinator & Former DG, CERT-In, Govt. of India  

“The entire economy of the world is $104 trillion and 47% of it is digital economy. AI and communication are the two major underlying layers of this economy. This is the era of technology and we have to deal with digital economic or non-digital economic, we can't escape out of it. Everyone is going to be connected, that is the future scenario. In the entire 5G implementation, there are more than 289 Next-Generation protocols which were implemented.” 

Prof. Ranjan Bose  
Director - IIIT Delhi  

“We have been talking about cybersecurity for a long time. Digital Trust is the new oil and we have to change our lens going forward. There are reasons for increased interest and importance of this digital trust. Security and reliability are the corner stone of the aspect. As it becomes shared responsibility, accountability comes next. If you look at the different perspectives in terms of privacy, we will have to now look at this circuit of digital trust.” 

Shikha Srivastava  
Director and Board Member, Centre for Development of Telematics 

“There are two scales of solutions that we have identified. One is the country level solution and the other is the enterprise level solution. We have already implemented the national scale solution. We are actually detecting the attacks coming into the country. We have also developed our own models and algorithms for detecting these attacks. You will be surprised to know that a majority of the attacks are originating from India and the reason is that there are many machines in our ecosystem that are compromised. People are getting hold of those machines and using them to initiate attacks to other countries.”  

Dr. Biswajit Mohapatra 
Head of Customer Solutions Management, India and South Asia, Amazon Web Services India Private Limited  

“The world has changed for all of us and so has risk. With acceleration of digital technology cloud has taken main-stream. As I suggest my customers, cloud is secure so that our customers could take transformation journey and transform to cloud. Cloud is a responsibility between your customers and as well as you as a cloud service provider. Security of the cloud is the cloud service provider’s responsibility but security in the cloud is definitely the tenant’s responsibility.”