Times of India The Week Business Standard
IIT Kharagpur has been adjudged the winner of the DSCI Excellence Award 2018 for Cyber Security Education by NASSCOM‘s Data Security Council of India (DSCI). The Institute, which has been making waves in the areas of cybersecurity, IoT security and associated areas in Artificial Intelligence, was awarded for its focused curricula and research work in cryptography, hardware security, cyber security, network security, that has helped create awareness among students.
“Our research and coursework in cyber security, network security and cryptography are targeted towards delivering the necessary technologies and also creating leaders in research, industry and governance who would bring forward such transformation in India which is undergoing the digital revolution right now as we talk,” said Prof. P P Chakrabarti, Director, IIT Kharagpur.
A number of research ventures led by Prof. Debdeep Mukhopadhyay at the Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering at IIT Kharagpur were primarily considered for this Award. These included DRDO funded projects on developing lightweight protocols for authenticating IoT nodes, IC reverse engineering and trojan detection, and the DST funded Swarnajayanti project on secure authentication protocols for smart grids. The Award committee specially cited the advanced infrastructure and lab equipment procured by the Institute for these projects, including a DRDO funded FIB station for IC imaging.
“At IIT Kharagpur we focus on online and offline security of data in the digital space since our experience at consumer and B2B levels tell us that without appropriate security measures, any data-centric solution would create a Mr. Hyde instead of a Dr. Jekyll,” opined Sikhar Patranabis who received the award at the NASSCOM-DSCI Annual Information Security Summit 2018 on December 5.
Sikhar, a B.Tech. topper in 2015 and currently a Ph.D. candidate at the Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering at IIT Kharagpur, is among the few buddying technologists in India pursuing research in the area of cryptographic security for the Internet of Things. “You might think of making your home smart by installing IoT gadgets and applications but what happens, for instance, when the access is overridden by unauthorized entities? By the time you reach home, the security of your house would be breached. So any smart application must be designed keeping the security requirements in mind,” he explained.
Data Security Council of India (DSCI), is a not-for-profit, industry body on data protection in India, set up by NASSCOM, committed to making the cyberspace safe, secure and trusted by establishing best practices, standards and initiatives in cybersecurity and privacy. To further its objectives, DSCI engages with governments and their agencies, regulators, industry sectors, industry associations and think tanks for policy advocacy, thought leadership, capacity building and outreach activities.
The purpose of the DSCI Excellence Award is to recognize, honour and reward organizations and individuals who have taken strategic, proactive and innovative security and privacy efforts to help the organization address real risks, build resilience, increase trustworthiness and create a conducive environment for doing business and thus enable the organization to harness data protection as a lever for business growth.