Corporate sector focused on cybersecurity: report
Organisations in India are seeing a significant increase in the cybersecurity challenges they face amid the shift to mass remote working, a new study by Cisco shows.
According to the study, 73% of organisations in the country have experienced a 25% or more jump in either cyber threats or alerts since the start of Covid-19.
Cisco’s ‘Future of Secure Remote Work Report’ revealed many Indian organisations were unprepared to make the accelerated transition to a remote workforce at the outset of Covid-19.
About two-thirds (65%) of organisations adopted cybersecurity measures during Covid-19 to support remote working.
The study is based on a survey of over 3,000 IT decision-makers globally, including over 1,900 respondents across 13 Asia Pacific markets, including India.
It highlights the cybersecurity challenges companies faced as they shifted the majority of their employees to a remote working arrangement in a really short period of time. With users connecting from outside the corporate walls,secure access defined as the ability to verify identity and establish trust no matter how, where, or when users log in, is the top cybersecurity challenge faced by the largest proportion of Indian organisations(68%)when supporting remote workers.
Other concerns raised by organisations include data privacy (66%) and protection against malware (62%).
“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% of companies in reinventing their workplaces post Covid-19,” said Vishak Raman, Director, Security Business, Cisco India & SAARC.
Endpoints are a growing challenge for organisations to protect,as users connect from their home Wi-Fi or use their personal devices to connect to corporate applications. The study highlights that 77% of organisations in the region plan to increase their future investment in cybersecurity due to Covid-19.