Cyber security needs more specialists: Palanivel Thiagarajan

Cyber security needs more specialists: Palanivel Thiagarajan

Citing a quote of one of the speakers at the recently concluded Umagine, a technology and innovation summit hosted by the Tamil Nadu government, Minister for Information Technology and Digital Services Palanivel Thiaga Rajan said, “If you are going to be in cyber security, you will not be unemployed for the next 40-50 years.”

The Minister was addressing a conclave “ PALS-ECU Cyber Edge 2024” at the IIT-Madras, which was organised by PALS, an IIT Alumni Initiative, in association with Edith Cowan University, Australia. Noting that there is going to be massive job growth in this field, the Minister said, “The need for cyber security is just going to scale so rapidly and if we did not believe it yesterday’s (March 5, 2024) attack on Facebook, and Instagram which basically crippled the platforms are an immediate validator of the extensive need.”

The Minister further said, “For us as government, we need more and more specialists here in India, here in Tamil Nadu and overall for the world…. the threat is only going to keep increasing.” “And with the advent of AI, there will be new shapes of threats and new forms of threats, he added.

V. Kamakoti, Director, IIT-Madras told the students that ethical hacking is going to be the next big employment opportunity. Andrew Woodward, Professor at Edith Cowan University spoke about the role of big data analytics in identifying patterns and trends in cyber threats. He also highlighted that password reuse is a big problem and to reduce the threat one needs to use a password manager.

During a panel discussion, Ramakrishna Hegde, Associate Professor, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Vidyavardhaka College of Engineering said there is a need to create right talent and highlighted about the skill development courses in cyber security. “Industry plays a major role and they have to come up with what skills are required,” he added.