Deepika Chauhan, DigiCert’s Chief Product Officer, is a well-known figure in the cybersecurity industry. She has been working in the industry for over twenty years, making her an authority on the topic of digital trust and its significance in the modern world. I got the chance to interview her recently and ask her about her thoughts on digital trust and how it is influencing the future.
Deepika, in her infinite wisdom, characterised digital trust as the bedrock of protecting the technology of the global village. Since the pandemic, the legacy and assimilation of WFA or WFH culture have significantly boosted. The known pandemic has acted as a tailwind for the growing digitalisation of the world and the establishment of digital trust for remote working.
The Three Pillars of Digital Trust
Speaking of which, the pandemic is still a hot topic of conversation even now, which led me to my second question for Deepika: How are organisations in the Asia-Pacific region dealing with digital trust in the face of a growing threat landscape?
“In general, nine out of ten organisations in the Asia Pacific report that digital trust is highly crucial,” Deepika said. According to a survey, 42% of APAC customers have ceased interacting with businesses because they no longer trust the companies’ digital trustworthiness. A whopping ninety-nine per cent of customers said they planned to leave in search of a more trustworthy digital vendor.
The increasing number of connected devices, while driving the need for digital trust, also increases the scope of potential threats. Deepika warned that consumers are developing paranoia over losing control over their environment. Additionally, Deepika highlighted the three elements that customers want full visibility on:
Trust across all the digital assets
Trust in digital systems, processes, and services refers to the degree to which individuals and businesses feel safe and confident in their use of these technologies. This includes everything from online platforms and mobile apps to websites and IoT gadgets in the cloud.
Device trust between multiple manufacturers
The term “device trust amongst manufacturers” describes the level of confidence one company’s devices have in those of other manufacturers. This is accomplished by employing trusted execution environments, secure boot procedures, and other security mechanisms, and is crucial for ensuring the safety of inter-device communication and data sharing.
Documents or content trust
Trust in digital documents and material refers to the belief that the documents and stuff are genuine and unaltered. Digital signatures, certificate-based authentication, and similar trust-boosting technologies can help with this. The prevention of fraud, the maintenance of regulatory compliance, and the improvement of the company’s standing among its stakeholders and consumers may all be accomplished via the use of safe and reliable documents and materials.
How Would One Elaborate on the Growth Potential of Digital Trust in the Asia Pacific?
“This horizontality in technology is the problem that we are attempting to address. But beyond that, “that [growth] by itself is not enough,” Deepika said. Instead of determining what was bugging consumers last month, DigiCert wants to be the one that embeds or integrates digital trust into the customers’ ecosystem, whether it is CSC API or ITSM.
As the digital world continues to expand in the aftermath of the epidemic, digital trust is becoming more fundamental than ever. By pioneering the integration of digital trust into the consumer ecosystem, DigiCert is helping to alleviate these fears and improve the overall security of digital transactions.
