Indian Businesses Need to Brace up for More Cyber-attacks

As the business reengineered their process through digitalization because of COVID-19 pandemic, the situation has created new cybersecurity challenges for businesses

September 2, 2020, Ahmedabad: The Covid-19 pandemic, aptly described as a Black Swan event, has ushered in newer and tougher cybersecurity challenges, and businesses need to brace up to meet these challenges, a leading cybersecurity firm from India has said. Most of the business processes in a medium to large companies have started getting digitalization of and adoption of technology through the value chain is going to increase, which has given rise to new cybersecurity threats.

“The scenario where lakhs of employees are working from home has led to new cybersecurity threats. The measures that were in place prior to that are not as effective in the changed scenario. The cyber attackers are looking to exploit the security loopholes within the vulnerable remote networks. The sharp rise in cyber-attacks in recent months shows that they have been successful too. The challenge before businesses is to adapt to the new scenario to safeguard their digital assets,” said Jaydeep Ruparelia, CEO & Co-founder of Ahmedabad-based Infopercept Consulting, a leading Managed Security Services provider.

Infopercept has a presence across multiple cities in India, besides operations in the US, Middle East, Sri Lanka, Africa, and other places.

Mr. Ruparelia said that like Coronavirus, cyber attackers are also invisible and not much is known about them.

“We do not know who the attackers are, where they are operating from, and who and when they will target. As in the case of Coronavirus, the only way to protect ourselves from cyber-attacks is to have a proper cyber defense mechanism,” he said further.

Multiple reports have shown a sharp rise in cyber-attacks in India and across the world in the last few months as cyber attackers try to take advantage of the unprecedented situation.

Around 30-35% of the total IT spend of companies operating in traditional businesses such as banking, insurance, and manufacturing is on data security. However, looking at the current challenges, it is estimated that the figure could go up to 50% or higher in 2020 as businesses spend more towards cybersecurity initiatives.

Satyakam Acharya, Director, Red Team, Infopercept Consulting said that in any crisis, it is not the strongest or the most intelligent who survive, but the ones who adapt.

“The cybersecurity challenges are becoming more complex. Businesses need to brace for more and tougher attacks from unknown and invisible cyber attackers, and staying on top is an absolute necessity for survival,” he said.

Data has a critical role in the digital transformation of businesses, and managing and safeguarding data is a must to ensure business continuity.

Jiten Balgama, Director, Technology Optimization Center (TOC), Infopercept Consulting, said that the only way businesses can tackle the cybersecurity threats is by evaluating the risks and building capabilities accordingly.

“Businesses will have to put in place appropriate levels of security measures across the work landscape and become more resilient to face and stave off the attacks,” he said.

At Inforpercept, the team thinks and acts like the adversaries and adopts two pong approach to deal with advanced cyberattacks name deception technology and moving target defense. Deception technology is a cybersecurity defense practice that aims to deceive attackers by distributing a collection of traps and decoys across a system's infrastructure to imitate genuine assets. Moving target defense narrows down the window of opportunity for cybercriminals which leads them to try harder and invest more time and resources but in vain. Preethkaran J who joins Infopercept from KPMG suggests that this innovation as game-changer for the Indian businesses. According to him “in most of the cyberattacks that organizations face the place of the attacks are unknown and the companies invest their best resources for the IT integration, despite which adversaries are steps ahead”.

Moving ahead, the company is in the plans of releasing its cyber-security strategy product - ‘Game Plan’.

“We have seen that a lot of companies have different tools and technologies for real-time protection and detection. However, the whole thing is too complex, and besides the landscape is too dynamic and agile. Moreover, there are very few platforms that can help build the right cybersecurity strategy.” “Therefore, to bridge this gap, Game Plan, can help organizations access reliable and cost-efficient cybersecurity tools. Companies will be using this product as a shadow Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) to their CISO and adopt the right strategy for their cybersecurity decisions and program management,” concludes Deepak Bhavsar, Director Security Optimization Centre (SOC) and Compliance Optimization Centre (COC), Infopercept.

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