The global outbreak of Covid-19 has redefined many aspects of life, and one of them is working from home. Almost everyone, including the ones who always opposed the narration of working remotely, resorted to working from home, and now considering to offer permanent work from home option to a sizeable number of their workforce by realizing its advantages. The arrangement seems very exciting for both employees and employees as it has its own set of advantages, but it comes with a few challenges as well, especially for companies.
A new report shows that after a year of remote working driven by pandemics, 40% of Indian businesses have reported an increase in cyberattack volume, severity, and/or extent in the past 12 months.
The report stated that security is still a major concern for Indian businesses, despite being more than a year into remote work and the possibility of shifting to hybrid models. it also highlights that managing security risks in India is becoming increasingly difficult.
Cyberattacks in India: Big Picture
- The increasing number of cyberattacks in India paints a concerning picture as work from home is going to be the new normal.
- The percentage of Indian businesses reporting increased cyberattacks is still lower than the global percentage of 47%.
- 38% of Indian respondents remain concerned about security risks when working remotely.
- This number, however, has fallen to 39% according to the ‘2021 Thales Global Data Threat Report, which was commissioned by 451 Research, part S&P Global Market Intelligence.
“Many organisations experienced heightened security challenges over the last year and with the increasing number of ransomware attacks, organisations are now facing a double extortion threat,” said Ashish Saraf, VP and Country Director – India, Thales.
- Respondents from India indicated that malware, ransomware, and phishing were the top three common sources of security breaches, as reported by 56%, 53%, and 43% respondents respectively.
- Ransomware is emerging as the most favorite attack of cyberattackers in the recent past. It allows hackers to make companies cough up millions of dollars in a quick session. The recent ransomware attacks on a few of the world’s leading companies, including Accenture, attracted millions of eyeballs.
- Malicious insiders, external attacks, and human error were tagged as the most dangerous types of attacks by 40%, 25%, and 24% of respondents, respectively.
- Third-party vendor networks are blamed by 48% of respondents who believe that it is the biggest target for cyber attacks. On-premise legacy applications, cloud-based storage and web applications are ranked as the other potential threat by a sizeable number of respondents.
- Nearly half (48%) of Indian respondents report that their security infrastructure is not ready to deal with such cyberattacks, despite the known risk to remote working during the pandemic.
- Only 21% of Indian organizations believe that it was well prepared to deal with any kind of cyber attacks on their network.
Food For Thought
In 2020 India reported 1.6 million cases related to cybersecurity, which was 3x higher than the previous year. Undoubtedly, the increasing number of cyberattacks is one of the biggest risks to the flourishing economy which is largely dependent on tech. The number of cyber-attacks in India has already crossed 600,700 in the first six months of 2021 and cyber experts believe fears of it increasing in the months to come.
This leads us to a question “Have Indian organizations done enough to deal with such attacks or neglected the impact to a level of disaster?”
