HYDERABAD: Conversations around data privacy have gained momentum after the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) acquired WhatsApp chats about banned drugs from some Bollywood actresses’ phones. Netizens are wondering how WhatsApp chats could be accessed (as far back as 2017), even though they are end-to-end encrypted. As WhatsApp scrambled to defend its user privacy, speculations are rife that this was due to mobile cloning.
As per a recent report by The Kaspersky Security Network (KSN), India witnessed a 37 per cent increase in cyber-attacks in the first quarter of 2020 as compared to the last quarter of 2019.
As Work-from-Home (WFH) has become the norm, one of the biggest challenges that businesses are facing is to maintain worker productivity from anywhere without compromising security.
As per the Global Data Protection Index 2020 Snapshot, a research conducted by Vanson Bourne, organisations globally are now managing 13.53 petabytes (PB) of data, nearly a 40 per cent increase since the average 9.70 PB in 2018, and an 831 per cent increase since organisations were managing 1.45 PB in 2016.
Data protection and privacy have become buzzwords due to the increase in cyber-attacks.
“Data is considered as the new oil,” says Ripu Bajwa, director and general manager, data protection solutions, Dell Technologies.
“The data protection landscape in India has seen drastic changes over the past few years. With the increasing focus of Indian businesses towards emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT) etc., the importance of data has grown,” comments Ripu on the evolution of data protection landscape in the country.
“In the future, data will continue to grow, and so will external threats. Therefore, there will be a growing demand for data protection solutions,” adds he.
With Indian businesses and customers avidly focusing on holistic data protection solutions, Ripu says: “Due to WFH, there has been a strong desire by both large and small businesses, to equip themselves with modern data protection solutions to decrease the possibility of security threats, and help them in extracting and managing their growing data.”
Protect your phone and computers
Keep the mobile device software always updated
Don’t click on unknown and suspicious links and websites
Use strong passwords and pins
Don’t sideload and download untrusted apps
Don’t connect to vulnerable public Wifi networks
Avoid sharing your phone location and grant other device access permissions
Don’t accept unknown inbound connection requests such as Bluetooth, NFC, Wifi
Setup remote wipe out and locate device option
-Sai Krishna, chair, Global Cyber Security Forum
Tips to securely operate a business while remote working
Make security a part of business strategy
Key to a winning strike is the right digital partner
Shifting from security to resilience
-Ripu Bajwa, director and general manager, data protection solutions, Dell Technologies