The outbreak of global pandemic was dreadful for the medical sector, but deep down, the IT sector was a victim of the pandemic as well, as cyber criminals jumped at the opportunity to take advantage of the situation in order to exploit millions of employees, working from home by providing new access points to cyber viruses, malware, & phishing attacks. Along with that, cyber criminals also used innovative technologies, taking the breach to the next level, while trying to penetrate the corporate systems.
As India is counted as one of the most cyber attacked countries in the world, it is more than ever important to have strict data protection & cyber security laws for mitigating the theft of data and cyber crimes. Indian IT sector in order to counter these ongoing cyber attacks has been working on strengthening its security systems & ramping up the cyber security measures for addressing the rising threat of cyber attacks across all regions & sectors. Top Indian IT companies have started setting up centers of cyber threat management across the globe that provide cyber security services to their enterprise customers.
The government also took some counter measures to check the damage afflicted by the pandemic on the Indian cyberspace, which included forming a special response team i.e. Black Swan by CERT-in (Indian Computer Emergency Response Team). These SOS policies have been slowing these cyber attacks for the time, where according to the experts the Indian cyber policy still needs a renovation.
India’s dependency on technology is increasing with the nation carving a niche for itself in the IT sector. However, design and density are the two things that kept India behind global leaders like China and the United States. With the government pushing India to go fully digital, Indians have been using the internet for all their needs, ranging from studying to storing data, shopping, and banking, where in proportion to usage, cyber crimes have also increased with time.
According to a survey, the number of Indian cyber security product startups have witnessed a growth from 175 in 2018 to 225+ in 2020 and the revenue has grown from $475 million in 2018 to more than $1 billion.
As per a report by Cybersecurity Ventures, which is a technology research company, the number of cyber crimes could lead to damages worth upto $6 trillion in 2021. In October, Rajesh Pant, India’s National Cyber Security Coordinator stated, cyber crimes in India caused losses worth $17 billion in 2019. These figures are evident of why IT companies are trying to get a step ahead of their time in cyber security.
According to Prateek Garg, Founder & MD of Progressive Infotech, “Today, if one does not have a cyber-security policy in place, they are leaving themselves open, not only to a breach, but also to a huge recovery cost. According to Cost of a Data Breach Report by Ponemon Institute published by IBM Security, a breach lifecycle (time to identify plus time to contain a breach) under 200 days costs around $1.2 million less, compared with a lifecycle over 200 days. Detecting the breach as early as possible is crucial in managing the potential cost impacts on one’s business.”
