Cyber security issues are threat to whole nation and calls for a national effort,

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which needs integration of human talent, technology, organizational capabilities, investment and political will, said Sam Pitroda, advisor to the prime minister on public information, infrastructure and innovations.

We are very concerned about the cyber attacks. As we begin to spend more resources on internet and electronic infrastructure in the country, we need to be cautious of the attacks. If we don’t develop expertise and infrastructure on cyber security, we could get into serious troubles in some of the key areas, he said.

He further said experts in coding, mathematics, analysis, algorithms, reverse engineering, defensive and offensive cyber attacks need to identified and brought together to work in a structured environment.

“Cyber security solutions are technology for the young. Best hackers in the world fall in the age group of 15-20 years. The key challenge lies in identifying talent and I am very concerned about the cyber challenges of tomorrow,” he further said.

Pitroda further said that there are countries that train their intelligent prisoners systematically in hacking to address the nation’s cyber security problems.

“I am not telling we need to do that. My point is we need to think at all angles,” Pitroda said.

He also mentioned that the country has greater capability in software, while we lack in hardware. We export $70-$80 billion worth of software, but we are importing equal volume of hardware.

“You can build a company without hardware capability, but not a nation. The imbalance cannot go on. If we do not put right checks now, we will end up importing $200 billion of hardware very soon,” he said.