The fallout from the COVID-19 crisis continues to fundamentally reshape the IT security landscape in India, according to a recent study carried out by the CyberRisk Alliance and underwritten by Infoblox. The report shows India remains among the countries most vulnerable to cyberattacks since the pandemic, with nearly 7 in 10 organizations experiencing some type of data breach.
Just as alarming, the number of attacks—134 per organization on average in 2022—was also high, and occurred across a wide range of vectors:
- 26 email/phishing
- 22 network
- 20 application
- 18 ransomware
- 17 device/endpoint
- 16 cloud
- 15 third-party/supply chain
India Looking to Greater Spending on Innovative Security Measures in 2023
An increasing reliance on cloud infrastructure and the growing sophistication of ransomware is prompting more Indian organizations to prioritize cyber security in 2023. It doesn’t just talk: Numerous studies, including this one, show the vast majority of Indian entities intend to spend more on cyber security in the coming year.
Notably, findings from the survey show that Indian organizations are not just more apt to use expanded budgets to hire additional IT staffing than most other nations surveyed. They also are more likely to accelerate digital transformations already underway and add innovative security measures such as cloud-based DNS-DHCP-IPAM (DDI) technologies to help protect networks. These approaches stand in contrast to other countries that turned to more conventional technologies, like firewalls and VPNs, or additional corporate or employee device security measures.
How Indian Organisations Responded in the Wake of Covid-19
Since the pandemic began, many Indian businesses and nonprofit entities accelerated their digital transformations and increased support for customer portals to support remote workers.
- 68% – Accelerated digital transformations to support remote workers.
- 63% – Boosted support for customer portals.
- 58% – Added resources to their networks and databases.
A Wary Eye on the Months Ahead
Having been hit hard by cyberattacks in recent years, IT decision-makers in India are prioritizing their security efforts to address the most pressing threats. In the next 12 months, Indian respondents said they will be most concerned about the following:
- 57% are worried most about data leaks.
- 40% said they were concerned about a direct attack through cloud services.
- 39% are worried about an attack through networked IoT devices.
These are just a few of the findings from the 2023 study. Produced for Infoblox by the CyberRisk Alliance, the annual survey covers 13 global markets. In addition to India, they include the United States, Mexico, Brazil, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, The Netherlands, Spain, United Arab Emirates, Australia, Singapore, and Japan.
The data and insights in the report are based on a global survey of IT and cyber security decision-makers and influencers conducted online from December 2022 to January 2023. More than 100 India-based organizations participated, ranging in size from small-to-medium businesses to enterprise-level companies across various industries, with most from technology (42%), manufacturing (15%), and financial services (12%).