Lucid Dream - the background

Two young friends dreamt together with their open eyes to one day grow up and make a difference to the society they live in.  In the year 2001, while pursuing their post graduation degrees in Master of Computer Application from Utkal University, Bhubaneshwar, Odisha, they came up with the name SecurEyes for their future firm, which would thwart nefarious practices in cyber space.

With firm conviction and rock-solid determination, the two friends, Seemanta Patnaik and Karmendra Kohli, laid the first set of bricks of their future company by hiring four technical staff and one admin staff; the office being housed in an apartment unit. The diligent work paid off and sixteen years on, the organization now has 7 offices across the globe, with close to 300 employees. Today, the company has a turnover close to INR 100 Crores. They are empaneled with NIC (National Informatics Centre) and the CERT-IN (Computer Emergency Response Team – India) to work on cybersecurity project and as Cybersecurity Auditors for various Ministries, States, and Departments of the Govt. of India. They are regulatory auditors for the Saudi Central Bank as well. SecurEyes has a vast span of clients in Asia Pacific, Middle East & North Africa. Furthermore, SecurEyes offers education in awareness and training for the cybersecurity profession providing 100% placement to deserving candidates.

Udaipur Times had an exciting opportunity to interact in an exclusive call with SecureEyes founders, Seemanta Patnaik and Karmendra Kohli.

Here are the excerpts from the interview:

Areas and domain in which SecurEyes provides cybersecurity

As Karmendra explained, SecurEyes is a specialist cybersecurity advisory, consulting, products, and education company.

Advisory and Consulting unit of SecurEyes have the role of cybersecurity advisors + consultants, cybersecurity framework creators, policymakers, risk management strategists, vulnerabilities and penetration testing at the network, application, processes, and code-layer review levels, amongst other services they provide.

Testing services division of SecurEyes provides an assessment to its customers of how their business security layers are perceived by adversaries and how they should fix the same.

GRC (Governance, Risk, and Compliance) services section of SecurEyes helps the customers to set-up their cybersecurity practice and assists in building their internal cybersecurity team. It also audits their systems on a regular basis.

Product Development unit of SecurEyes has developed India-first, unique and innovative products, which assist its customers in solving their risk management problems in a comprehensive manner. 

Training and Education unit of SecurEyes provides bespoke trainings to corporate customers. It has also partnered with Government of India and other countries across the globe to provide cybersecurity skill development training. The SecurEyes Cybersecurity Certification Program courses are open to students who are interested in making a career in this field.

Pioneering work done by SecurEyes

Seemanta informed that as a first from India, SecurEyes has created a SupTech (Supervisory Technology) platform product for regulatory authorities to proactively monitor risks and compliances of supervised entities.

“We started as consultants and after consulting for thirteen long years, working closely with multiple regulators, we understood the challenges and the problems faced. Hence we decided to develop solutions for those problems.” - Seemanta Patnaik, co-Founder, SecurEyes

SecurEyes has developed a product called RegTrac that helps regulatory authorities get a unified view of compliance against all regulatory standards and frameworks by the members within the sector. Using this technology, central banks, regulators, and supervisory authorities are able to take decisions based on accurate data and risks posed by the supervised entities thereby enabling their growth and innovation while at the same time keeping them stable and most importantly, protected.

Corporate and Federal Clients

In the field of cybersecurity in India, SecurEyes is one of the four companies, and the only Indian cybersecurity specialist company, that have been associated with NIC (National Informatics Center) and NICSI (National Informatics Center Services) for more than fifteen years.

SecurEyes is a listed CERT-IN (Computer Emergency Response Team, India) empaneled organization as well. Through these key panels, it provides a wide range of information security audit and compliance services to all the ministries, state governments, and key departments. SecurEyes works with the Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Home Affairs, MyGov site, Ministry of Commerce, Ministry of Finance and Ministry of External Affairs.  It also provides cybersecurity solutions to two of the India’s leading banks, ICICI and State Bank of India.

SecurEyes also works with regulatory authorities, governments, and large enterprises in twelve other countries.

Seemanta and Karmendra have a clear vision for the comprehensive growth of their company. In their words, “Our overarching vision is to become the cybersecurity partner for all governments and large enterprises across the world. We want to continue the participation in growing the cybersecurity sector via training and educational programs in partnership with governments, enterprises and educational institutions.”

India at the global front in technology

Karmendra acknowledges, “India currently is a strong player in the cybersecurity industry. Going ahead with the immense human resource pool that India has, the quality education that is provided in India, and the kind of IQ Indians have, we are at the forefront and going ahead this will only increase.”

India has a noteworthy focus on cybersecurity – it has recently risen from the 47th to the 10th position in the United Nation’s ITU Global Cybersecurity Agenda (GCA), which is reflective of the various measures being undertaken from a legal and regulatory perspective, as well as from the perspectives of capacity building and organizational measure. From education and awareness to capacity building and ecosystem development, cybersecurity is an important area of focus for the government, key associations such as NASSCOM and DSCI, and the industry at large, making India an important cybersecurity hub.

SecurEyes Training Programs

Cybersecurity is a challenge faced by individuals, corporate organizations and governments across the world. The situation is further exacerbated due to the lack of skilled people to tackle it at all levels. According to research conducted by the International Information System Security Certification Consortium, there is an estimated global shortage of nearly 3Mn cybersecurity professionals. It's estimated that the digital economy is worth US$11.5 trillion globally, equivalent to 15.5% of global GDP; it has grown two and a half times faster than global GDP over the past fifteen years. And like death and taxes, unfortunately cybercrime has become a permanent fixture in our digital world, with the top digital crimes being phishing scams, non-payment/non-delivery scams, and extortion. In this context, cybersecurity professionals are people who devote their lives in helping to keep the world safe. And although a career in cybersecurity might not be the first job to come to mind, cybersecurity professionals protect the digital world from cybercrime much the same way that police officers protect neighbourhoods.

To fill the skill-gap in this job market, SecurEyes, is conducting an online skill development course - SecurEyes Cybersecurity Certification Program.

• The course consists of 450 hours of online training program

• Cybersecurity certified and experienced professionals from around the globe will conduct the classes

• Students will have 24*7 access to online labs & study materials

• Comprehensive coverage of key concepts:

  • Fundamentals of Information Security

  • Network Security Fundamentals and Practices

  • Infrastructure Security Fundamentals and Practices

  • Application Security Fundamentals and Practices

  • Fundamentals of Governance, Risk & Compliance

  • Security Operations & Incident management

On completion of the classroom hours, students will move forward to a 6-month on- job training on live projects.

Criteria for Admission

SecurEyes offers online as well as offline classes. Candidates who are passionate about cybersecurity and have completed their graduation or are in the final year/ semester can apply for this course. Gender, age, physical/ social/ financial challenges are no bar for interested and deserving candidates.

To know more or to register for the course, students can connect with the SecurEyes Academy team by calling +91 98868 98192; emailing: cscp@secureyes.net. Details are available on https://cscp.secureyes.net.

 Details about SecurEyes as an organization: