BENGALURU: Cybersecurity threats are increasing at an alarming rate for Indian enterprises as a
hybrid workspace model is being deployed by a majority of these companies. After the government eased the Other Service Provider (OSP) regulations for the BPO and IT services firms for facilitating Work from Home, experts say companies should start investing more in cybersecurity to allay major concerns like data leakages and malware attacks.
A recent study by Cisco found that a majority of the Indian firms reported a 25 per cent increase in cybersecurity attacks amidst a mass shift to remote working. The survey, which quizzed 3,000 IT leaders globally including India, found that secure access, data privacy and malware were the primary concerns faced by enterprises. It added that many Indian firms were rather unprepared to make an accelerated transition to offshore models amid the pandemic.
“With organisations forced to shift to a new way of working almost overnight, the newly distributed workforce became a focal point for malicious actors. As a result, the pandemic has amplified the criticality of cybersecurity and brought new complexities to the fore. Now, as remote work continues to garner traction, organisations are turning their attention to building a robust cybersecurity foundation, with cloud security emerging as the top investment for 31 per cent of companies in reinventing their workplaces post COVID-19,” said Vishak Raman, Director, Security Business, Cisco India & SAARC.
Reports suggest that as more and more employees now work remotely, they use personal laptops. Besides, a majority of them have no training in modern cybersecurity tools. According to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, commercial and legal entities faced almost seven lakh cyber attacks till August. Although cybersecurity spends by organisations have increased in the past few quarters, there are numerous entry points now available to hackers and hence, access to sensitive data has become easier, explained Karmesh Gupta, CEO and Co-Founder, WiJungle, citing the recent data breach in Cognizant.
Pharma firms come under cyber attack
Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories was forced to isolate its data centres after a cyber attack hit its plants in India and globally on October 22. Just two weeks later, Indian peer Lupin also reported a cybersecurity attack.