The Data Security Council of India has forecast that the cybersecurity ecosystem will expand up to a point where nearly one million professionals will be required by 2025. Additionally, the demand for cloud security skills is estimated to grow by 115% between 2020 and 2025, representing almost 20,000 job openings, Narayan added.

An extensive exercise in reskilling and/or upskilling the existing workforce, believe staffing experts, is one of the ways that telcos can future proof their work.

Indian mobile phone operators are expected to at least double their investments on network security with the 5G roll out expected to spark a surge in network vulnerabilities, which assume critical importance especially for enterprises.

However, it is already proving to be a challenge for telcos to have robust security teams.