How to Keep up With the New Threats: Sandeep Singh Explains Essential Aspects of Modern Cybersecurity

The second half of 2024 in India was marked by several cybersecurity incidents, such as the Star Health Insurance breach in September, which affected the data of 31 million customers, or a security breach at Signzy fintech startup in December. These events highlight the importance of implementing and constantly improving available cybersecurity standards. Sandeep Singh, a senior member of IEEE, a world-renowned cybersecurity expert specializing in identity and access management (IAM) with over 20 years of experience implementing & Support high-security IAM solutions across Australia, the USA, Canada and Singapore, marked with multiple awards including “Cybersecurity Expert” in BrainTech Awards 2024, explains what technology is required to ensure an adequate level of security.

Sandeep, you have implemented and supported identity and access management solutions throughout your career in various organisations, including Brisbane City Council, Bank of Montreal, BG Groups, EMC DATA Storage Systems and T-Mobile. Your achievements at TechDemocracy are particularly impressive, as your efforts resulted in $40 million in cost savings in the course of integrating customer accounts over multiple stores. While the diversity of the domains requires a tailored approach to each case, are there any common principles you follow?

While the implementation in each particular case can be different, IAM plays an integral part in mitigating cybersecurity risks, as it becomes the first line of defense against threats, preventing unauthorized access to sensitive information and ensuring that only the right individuals have access to the right resources at the right time. The tasks that need to be solved to achieve this goal also remain the same.

You have experience working with various technologies, including Oracle Identity Management and SailPoint IdentityIQ, migrating the identity management system to more modernized solutions. One of the most impressive examples is your work for a city council in Australia, where you played a key role in stabilizing a project from a critical state. How do you overcome the challenges of such a transition?

For a smooth migration to the new solution, a professional must deeply understand the architecture of both old and target systems and the existing workflows. The fact that the market for IAM solutions is rapidly growing adds to the challenge, as new solutions are constantly being developed. Consequently, a professional aiming to build their career in the industry needs to learn continuously to keep up with the evolving technology. I highlight the importance of continuous learning in my recent scientific publications in International Journal of All Research Education and Scientific methods and in International Journal of Computer, and I always emphasize this principle when educating others. I also aim to support the best implementations that can become a model for other developers, through participating in a jury board at several awards, such as Globee Awards and Cases&Faces.

Keeping up with technological advancements is an essential part of the education of any cybersecurity professional, and your project for Singapore exchange gives a clear example why. How do you include recent developments and challenges in your consultations and presentations?

Within this project, we provided IAM solutions and consultations for advanced features in Oracle IAM, to find efficient solutions for challenges and critical issues that arose in their environment. As the technology is evolving constantly, it creates new cybersecurity threats and attack vectors, it also equips developers with new tools to counteract them. To ensure an adequate level of security, companies need to consider these technologies, incorporate them into their processes, and establish a reliable IAM system, which plays a crucial role here.