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The Prominence of Cyber Security and Cyber Insurance in Today's World

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Cybersecurity is paramount given everyone from urban to rural areas is accessing the internet and hence, are exposed to all kinds of cyber-attacks. The Internet has become a means of communication in our day-to-day life leaving us dependent on smartphones more than ever. Factors such as affordability and accessibility have also contributed to this dependency. With this, we have witnessed cybercrimes burgeoning worldwide. Our increasing dependency on the digital world is giving more ways for cybercriminals to find loopholes and create new avenues to carry out social engineering attacks, access and take control of devices, install malware and steal personal information.

As per the government data, this year i.e in 2022 until June, India witnessed about 6.74 Lakh cyberattacks which translated to around 3700 cyber cases a day The figures show that there has been a massive increase in cybercrimes from last year to this year.

It's pivotal to understand that cybersecurity is needed for anyone who is using the Internet irrespective of the kind of device. Whenever we buy laptops or desktops, anti-virus or security solutions are essentials that we would buy with them but this is not the case with mobile phones. Even though we use mobile phones way more than our laptops/desktops It will not be wrong to say that our mobile phones carry our private information and personal data that must be secured.

Cyber attacks have grown exponentially in the last few years; either we have been a victim or someone we know has lost money from a digital transaction or their social media account has been compromised or they have been a victim of a phishing attack. I would like to add that as per recent Government reports around 61,000 complaints of financial frauds were registered in May 2022. These were primarily digital payments frauds and UPI frauds related complaints. While the government needs to increase awareness and introduce measures to stop these cyber criminals, there is one way in which users can mitigate financial loss and digital payment frauds and that is Cyber Insurance. Many people don’t know about cyber insurance as it hasn’t been talked about much when we discuss cybersecurity in general. In my opinion, cyber insurance is a powerful tool to protect yourself from financial losses due to cyber-attacks.

Threats to your data while using a cybersecurity solution, is it safe?
A good security app works like a watchman or a security guard where it keeps a check in real-time on the incoming or outgoing traffic and if it finds something suspicious, it takes an action and blocks it. Anything that requires you to run a manual scan isn’t sufficient in today's day and age and honestly, it causes way more damage. Security solutions need to stay updated with new threat vectors and these updates are to be done automatically without user intervention. I also suggest that users should find out how transparent the security apps are in terms of what data or permissions they are asking for and if there is a genuine reason to have permission on the phone or to access their data. Any internet user must have come across apps that ask for data permission and they arbitrarily check all the boxes and give all the permissions; the power must be given to the consumer to choose what data they want to provide or what not to provide to the application. This can be done only if apps can explain simply what data is to be collected and why they are collecting it and then allow the users to choose for themselves what they want to share with the app.

Security in the cloud
Cloud security is an integral subset of cybersecurity which includes a multitude of security measures designed to ensure the safety of cloud-based infrastructure, data, and applications. The data on cloud servers are encrypted, hence it becomes difficult for attackers to access and steal the data. It is important to make sure that you save your files to a cloud service provider that encrypts your information. Another aspect is to timely update your operating system the moment you get notifications. Those updates often contain features designed to protect your devices from viruses and malware.

To offer the best cloud services, cloud companies are also turning to AI to stay ahead in protecting your files to combat at least the first level of security checks. Such programs depend on algorithms and look for possible vulnerabilities in security measures. Additionally, cloud providers also use hardware or software-based firewalls to keep your data safe and filter out malicious and suspicious traffic making it hard for hackers to get into the network.

Lastly, ensure you choose only those cloud providers that back up your files not just on one server, why? Because in case that server goes offline, you will be unable to access your data. Moreover, just to be on the safe side, please take a backup of the important and sensitive files on your own external hard drives and ensure to encrypt them. If something goes wrong with the cloud provider, you will have your data.

Future of cyber insurance in India
As health and life insurance have become a necessity today, we are likely to witness the same for cyber insurance in the coming years. With the increasing adoption of the digital world where everyone has their own digital identity, the rate of cybercrime incidents has also increased, making it imperative to talk about protection against such cyber risks. An offering like cyber insurance cover could help internet users to mitigate the risk of financial loss or identity theft. As per an industry report, cyber insurance can be a $20 bn industry by 2025 - a growth of nearly 3 times in just five years.

With the ever-growing base of smartphone users and more Indian citizens gaining access to smartphones and the internet, we must raise awareness around digital hygiene. Cyber insurance products have seen steep growth for enterprises, but for individuals, it’s still a very new concept that has huge potential. There is, a lot more that needs to be done with collective efforts, especially raising cyber awareness through schools, colleges, and NGOs to bring this important digital safety topic to the next generation.