In August Indian companies got interim survey results revealing the issues businesses faced when going remote. The overall picture of the region cybersecurity preparedness amid the lockdown appeared to be far from complete.

At least one information security incident has happened in 66% of Indian companies since businesses shifted to remote proving the low readiness to relocating the processes outside the office and possible lack of understanding how to ensure secure connection to the corporate assets as well as keep employees as a team while they are all working in different places.

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More than 1000 business decision makers from India, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Singapore and Australia took part in the survey, 247 of them are professionals from India.

Almost 3/4 of respondents admitted to being preoccupied with the risks brought by insufficient business continuity management and by a data breach. More than half of Indian companies have no cyber threat mitigating solutions installed and no proper risk management framework implemented.

According to Murali Urs, Country Manager India, Barracuda Networks, the more employees are working at home the more devices are connected outside the secured perimeter.

89% of companies set a 6-month plan to accelerate the process of adjusting business to the lockdown, and 83% opted for the cloud deployment model.

In October Indian companies reported an increase in cybersecurity risks - the number of threats rose by 25% during the lockdown in 73% of organisations. 65% introduced cybersecurity tools amid the pandemic to support remote working. Secured connection and access to corporate assets is the biggest challenge for 68% of companies in India working remotely. 66% were highly concerned about data privacy.

According to the BusinessLine and the published Cisco’s Future of Secure Remote Work Report, "Over half (53%) of the organisations in India said they expect more than half of their workforce to continue working remotely post-pandemic, 84% felt that cybersecurity is now a top priority and 77% of organisations in the region plan to increase their future investment in cybersecurity."

Vishak Raman, Director, Security Business, Cisco India & SAARC said, “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.”

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