With everything going digital in India, Cyber security has become an issue of highest concern. Both government and non-government bodies are fighting cybercrimes. To combat cyber crimes, skill development and awareness are the need of the hour. In a chat with VARINDIA, Murali Ramalingam, Country Manager, Ixia Technologies, discusses about the security landscape, defending critical infrastructure and Cyber Range which is a training centre that propagates education on combating cybercrimes and how it can be made useful for organizations.
 How has been the present security landscape in India?
The security industry in India is shifting. In the last few years, there have been numerous systematized security breaches in India that have caused data losses worth millions of dollars. According to Gartner, the overall IT spend on security in India in 2016 is expected to reach $1.12 billion, up 10 per cent from $1.01 billion in 2015. Indian enterprises have started to realize that cyber-attacks affect their business continuity, agility, and brand image equally. They are looking for advanced capabilities around security operations and incident response. Cybersecurity experts point out that as India starts consuming more technology, it is also vulnerable to the kind of attacks that are unable to anticipate. We have noticed that companies across verticals are now investing significantly in network security solutions to fend off future attacks. Growth in online and digital data has played a significant role in driving the security market in India. Indian enterprises are more vulnerable to security attacks as they have not adopted and implemented the best of security solutions available.
 How safe are the government servers and networks from cybercrimes?Â
Breaches are happening across the world, affecting government and private sector. There are government and non-government bodies which are actively engaged in cyber warfare. The need is to always be ahead of the curve and do the math backwards. There is a strong need for skills development and even bigger need for creating awareness, recognizing that the problem exists, and a rigorous plan needs to be chalked out to tackle it. India ranks in the top five countries with the highest defence budget. Cyber crime is growing at such a rapid rate that this should have a place in the defence budget as well as the Home Ministry. There is internal security and then there is national security. Organizations like CERT and NIC are entrusted with the task of safeguarding the government IT infrastructure, and have been working together to upkeep the IT infrastructure of government.
How to defend the critical information infrastructure of our country against malicious and destructive cyber terrorism and nation-state attacks?
Defending a critical information infrastructure is like defending borders. The government machinery has to be vigilant 24X7, 365 days. We need to look at security as an all-time practice which is not a one-time activity. Technology keeps on evolving and so do the risks. Government and regulatory authorities should look at establishing a holistic security framework that requires – People, Processes and Resources. People should be well trained, processes need to be established with clear guidelines and protocols, and you need the right tools. Ixia Technologies provides a 360-degree solution with its BreakingPoint System and Cyber Range services. BreakingPoint generates internet scale application traffic and malicious attacks that include DDoS, botnets, malware, etc. This is done in a staged lab environment to identify vulnerabilities. Ixia’s Cyber Range training can help network administrators, SOC and NOC teams prepare and defend in the event of an attack.
How will cyber range, which is built in Delhi, help enterprises, government and regulatory authorities?
Cyber attacks are impacting India’s economy. According to an ASSOCHAM and Mahindra SSG report, cybercrimes have cost India about Rs.24,630 crore in a year and will slow down initiatives like Make in India and Digital India.
In simple terms, Cyber Range is like shooting or kinetic ranges which facilitate training in weapons, actions or strategies. Cyber Range creates cyber warriors to combat security attacks. Cyber Range built in Delhi acts as a centre of excellence and a training centre. As a centre of excellence, Ixia Technologies invites government, regulatory authorities and enterprises to experience the depth and breadth of our solutions to better understand what it takes to build a Cyber Range of their own. As a training centre, we are on a mission to fill the skill gap that exists for cybersecurity experts. A recent labour report suggested that there will be a surge in demand of cybersecurity professionals by 200% around the world and a shortage of at least half a million trained experts. The goal is to help train professionals and urge universities to include cybersecurity courses as part of the curriculum.
How can a Cyber Range help in constant training/enablement, assessment of NGFW pre-deployment, stress testing, penetration testing and mitigating network attacks (DDoS, Botnets, etc)?Â
Cyber Range is a virtual environment used for cyber warfare training and cyber technology development. Ixia’s Cyber Range delivers structured training and war-gaming exercises to prepare cyber warriors at both public and private organizations to defend their critical infrastructures, enterprises, and communications networks. With a comprehensive cyber warrior curriculum, commanders, government officials, and CIOs can educate and train their personnel through a wide range of exercises at increasing levels of difficulty to evaluate expertise and certify capabilities. Our services include both pre-built and customized war-game scenarios to ensure the highest security for any network.
Ixia's Cyber Range leverages BreakingPoint Actionable Security Intelligence (ASI) to generate realistic application traffic and exploits, using pre-configured and custom Internet and target simulations. The training objective is to instruct how to conduct offensive and defensive operations, taking into account personnel roles and responsibilities in a cyber range environment. Learning modules cover offensive operations including attack and exploit vectors and target simulations, defensive operations from a network/security operations centres (NOC/SOC) perspective, and lab exercises.
Ixia's BreakingPoint can also be used to test a NGFW in a lab environment where traffic is passed through for stress testing. The traffic is then combined with malicious attacks, e.g. DDoS, malware, botnets, etc to proactively identify vulnerabilities that need to be addressed in the network. A proactive approach to security is much less costly than a reactive one.
