IT security challenges rise with shift to remote work, says Microsoft
NEW DELHI: Nearly 62 per cent of business leaders in India believe that security challenges have changed as the shift to remote work due to COVID-19 pandemic fundamentally changes security architecture, according to Microsoft which recently surveyed 800 people across markets in India, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States.
About 47 per cent of leaders in India said that upskilling the workforce on new solutions and troubleshooting have emerged as the biggest challenge faced by their organisation's security team.
And 43 per cent of them said they are prioritising investments in cloud security through the calendar year. Investments towards data and information security is another important area with 37 per cent voting for it as a priority.
The pandemic also had direct implications on cybersecurity budgets and staffing with 33 per cent business leaders in India reporting 25 per cent budget increase for security and more than half (54 per cent) stating that they will hire additional security professionals in their security team.
A vast majority (70 per cent) of them said they plan to speed up deployment of zero trust capabilities to reduce risk exposure.
On a global level, highlight survey findings, 90 per cent of businesses have been impacted by phishing attacks with 28 per cent of respondents admitted to being successfully phished.
Notably, successful phishing attacks were reported in significantly higher numbers from organisations that described their resources as mostly on-premise (36 per cent) as opposed to being more cloud-based.
In response to COVID-19, more than 80 per cent of companies added security jobs. About 58 per cent of companies reported an increase in security budgets and 65 per cent reported an increase in compliance budgets.
Nearly 40 per cent of businesses said they are prioritising investments in cloud security followed by data and information security (28 per cent), and anti-phishing tools (26 per cent).
The shift to remote work is fundamentally changing security architecture by focusing on identities over perimeter security via zero trust strategies. About 51 per cent of business leaders are speeding up the deployment of zero trust capabilities and 94 per cent of companies report that they are in the process of deploying new zero trust capabilities.