Security News > 2004 > June > Indian outsourcers push to boost data security

http://www.computerworld.com/securitytopics/security/story/0,10801,93764,00.html By Narayanan Madhavan JUNE 10, 2004 REUTERS India's booming software and outsourcing sectors are trying to improve data protection to please increasingly security-conscious clients and to preempt protectionist laws, industry officials said today. Officials at the National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM) told a news conference that they will work with customers, regulators and law enforcers to bolster "trustworthy outsourcing" in India. India, where English-speaking workers earn a fraction of what their Western counterparts make, exported $12.5 billion worth of software and services in the past year, up more than 30% from the previous year. But protectionist laws have surfaced in some U.S. states to prevent local governments from outsourcing back-office jobs to India, while candidates in the U.S. presidential election have also spoken of measures to check job losses. U.S. lawmakers often cite security concerns about bank details and medical records being transferred to foreign countries when campaigning against outsourcing. "There could be some legislation on data protection. I don't want to wait for it to happen. I want to be proactive," said Kiran Karnik, president of NASSCOM. "We have to watch that these [data issues] don't become nontariff barriers." Karnik said the industry association planned to encourage Indian companies to share information on back-office workers, create a certification authority for safety and plug gaps in Indian laws by talking with Europe and the U.S. A cybersecurity summit with the U.S. is planned for October, and NASSCOM plans to replicate a cybersecurity lab it formed for police in Bombay in other cities, Karnik said. "India does not have a specific data protection act, but there are six laws which cover about 98% of the requirements," said Sunil Mehta, a vice president at NASSCOM. Between March 2003 and this March, back-office work such as call center operations and accounting services generated $3.6 billion in revenue and 245,000 of the jobs in the sector, which employs 800,000 people overall. NASSCOM said in a statement that a survey it commissioned found that Indian companies have rarely faced any problems on data security. And, despite an army of programmers, no major computer viruses have been traced back to India, Karnik said. _________________________________________ ISN mailing list Sponsored by: OSVDB.org - For 15 cents a day, you could help feed an InfoSec junkie! (Broke? Spend 15 minutes a day on the project!)

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