Why is cyber-security a must on the startup agenda?

BENGALURU : Cyber-security is becoming such a critical part of every business today and the threat arising from it is real. Startups, in general, tend to underestimate the amount of resources they really need to put towards it and often do not consider security as a priority, which could be dangerous. Be it a technology giant or a small business, every company has  vulnerabilities that could be exploited by hackers.

With India transforming into a cashless economy through an upsurge in the number of online transactions via net banking, e-wallets, debit and credit cards, cybersecurity risks should be taken seriously by every budding organisation. Startups have a cache of customer information including credit/debit card details, which is a goldmine for hackers. Additionally, it’s not just the financial data that is at risk but also the intellectual property and innovative ideas that are vulnerable to cyber-attacks. 

Being an e-tailer company, we are well aware of the risks involved and have ensured the highest standard of safety and security of our customer’s data with multiple layers of security platforms.

– Natasha Jain, CEO and co-founder, Bent Chair

Today, everything is connected. In a connected economy, everyone and everything is equally gullible. It is a myth that if you are a smaller organisation, you are not on the radar for attackers. The attackers usually go after low hanging targets to get the “trampoline effect” to launch larger attacks.

Predominantly lack of awareness, investments and basic measures make startups and smaller organisations easy targets. Often cyber attacks result in financial losses due to downtime and loss of business opportunity and penalties, reputation losses due to loss of critical customer data. Such attacks can be devastating for startups and make them go out of business. Not conforming to compliance and regulatory requirements like GDPR also results in huge penalties. This makes it important for startups to keep cybersecurity on their agenda right from day one embedded into their strategy. 

Poor IT risk posture of a startup’s product or service will make establishing their credibility and customer acquisitions hard. Bad IT security practices can make mergers and acquisitions harder as IT risks are considered business risks.

– Sashank Dara PhD, CTO and co-founder, Seconize, incubated at NASSCOMs Centre of Excellence, an initiative of Karnataka government 

Protecting our user data is of utmost importance for us. Since our offerings include real cash games, we make sure to take preventive measures to avoid any kind of security breach. We have implemented KYC mechanisms so our users are not prone to risks such as identity theft or other fraudulent activities. With rising cases of cyber-attacks by the day, we believe the government along with the businesses and individuals have to take a collective approach to address the problem areas. Soon we are launching a fantasy sports game and have used our earlier experience to create a seamless and secure user experience. 

- Prithvi Singh, founder and CTO at Gameskraft

Corporates in India spend millions of dollars on internal cyber-security. However, for employee transportation, many are forced to share employee personal information such as phone number and home address with cab drivers. This unavoidable procedure poses a grave security risk. We mitigate this risk by digitising corporate transportation through IOT and ensures communication between various transportation stakeholders without the need to share employee personal information.

– Surajit Das, Co-Founder and CEO, Routematic.