MSMEs need creative solutions to comply with CERT-In cybersecurity directions: Data Security Council of India

Cyber crime

In order to comply with the cybersecurity directives of the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), which include additional requirements like reporting cybersecurity incidents within six hours and storing customer logs for years, micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) need creative solutions, according to Vinayak Godse, the recently appointed chief executive officer of the Data Security Council of India (DSCI).

In an interaction with Moneycontrol, Godse said, “We definitely need some innovative creative solution for MSMEs to comply with these requirements quickly. We definitely need to handhold them to quickly come up to the age, we need capacity and capability at MSMEs.”

The DSCI is an industry body on data protection in India established by NASSCOM that works on cyber security, best practices, and other issues.

These comments come as the extended deadline for MSMEs to comply with the CERT-In directions ended last month.

Moneycontrol previously reported that MSMEs were not prepared to comply with the directives because they were having difficulty finding talent to deal with such issues, determining where the biggest gaps in cybersecurity exist, and so on.

“MSMEs need help in developing systems that can log and also create a process to report cybersecurity incidents. So those areas definitely need effort. But overall, I think this is an effort, which intent-wise is a welcoming step,” Godse added.

The industry body, along with NASSCOM, is currently undertaking a survey of how these directions have affected the industry.

Godse, who has been with DSCI since its inception in 2008 and has over 27 years of experience in information security, took over as CEO from Rama Vedashree.

Vedashree was CEO from June 2016 to September 2022.

Godse predicts that DSCI's role in cybersecurity and national security discussions will increase over the next five years.

"Today, cybersecurity has a lot of relevance to national security as well as supply chain issues with geopolitics around technology. So we are increasingly becoming relevant to those discussions," he said.

He also believes that the increased focus on cybersecurity in the country can translate into an opportunity to build a cybersecurity industry.

“The cybersecurity industry in India can scale up in the next five years, both from the product and services side. Product, more importantly, because that’s the part which will be important for national security as well,” Godse added.