India, July 11 -- India's internet cybersecurity startups are increasingly looking to merge with overseas firms to scale, a trend that will continue unless the domestic market expands, information technology (IT) department secretary S Krishnan said on Friday.

"This won't change until Indians start paying for cybersecurity tools and services," he said, underlining the need for stronger local demand to build homegrown capacity in the sector.

Krishnan pointed to an assessment by CERT-In, the nodal agency for cybersecurity incidents, that recommended 15-20% of all spending on software, IT, and digital infrastructure should go toward cybersecurity, a benchmark India has yet to meet.

The IT secretary's remarks came at the launch of a white ...