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NEW DELHI: Cybersecurity spending is growing across sectors but preventing data loss caused by cyberattacks is proving to be a tough task for many companies.
Around 70% of companies in India use as many as 10 solutions simultaneously for data protection and cybersecurity, while 30% run more than 10, yet 57% of them suffered unexpected downtime due to data loss in the last one year, shows a new survey by Acronis, a Singapore-based cybersecurity company.
Downtime can lead to huge loss of revenue and reputation for organisations. It can also lead to heavy penalty under data protection laws. According to Gartner’s estimates, average cost of one minute of system downtime is about $5,600. For large organisations, the costs are even higher.
Security experts have time and again emphasised that investing in multiple solutions does not necessarily enhance security. Most often it increases complexity and reduces visibility for the IT team, resulting in heightened risk.
Rustom Hiramaneck, general manager, South Asia at Acronis points out, “more solutions do not deliver greater protection, as using separate tools to address individual types of exposure is complicated, inefficient and costly.”
The report further dwells on the lack of transparency in cybersecurity practices, which complicates things for IT team.
For instance, it was found that 35% of IT users and 11% of IT professionals in India could not tell if their data had been modified without their knowledge as compared to 63% and 16% of their global counterparts, respectively. In most cases, the solutions used by them made finding that difficult.
The survey also found that 20% of IT professionals in India, as compared to 13% globally, don’t know if their organisation is subject to data privacy regulations. Security experts believe lack of this insight takes the onus away from IT team from implementing strategies to prevent data loss.
India is in the process of rolling out its data protection laws on the lines of Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019, is currently being analysed by a joint parliamentary committee and is expected to be tabled in the House sometime this year.
Last month, union home ministry informed Parliament that cyberattacks on Indian entities rose almost 300% in 2020 to reach 1,158,208 from 3,94,499 attacks detected in 2019, citing data from Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), India’s nodal cybersecurity agency.
For the survey, Acronis interviewed 4,400 IT users and professionals in 22 countries, including India.
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