Cyber Threat is a Reality, Especially so for India

May 5 was World Password Day. It’s probably a good time to discuss the relevance of cybersecurity and how it is most likely changing the way businesses operate.

The first Thursday of May was established by Intel as World Password Day to raise awareness about the importance of strong passwords. It is so distressing to keep track of passwords and pin numbers for all the different sites we use that many of us keep the same password for everything. For internet banking, for shopping, on Amazon, to buy flight tickets, for stock trading, to log in to office mails, and so on.

By doing so, we are seriously endangering our personal information. World Password Day highlights how even if one password is compromised, all of our digital identities can be at risk.

Cyber threat is a reality.

Especially so for India, say reports. Around 78 per cent of Indian organizations surveyed were hit by ransomware in 2021, says Sophos, the cybersecurity firm. 5,600 mid-sized organizations in 31 countries were surveyed across Europe, the Americas, Asia-Pacific and Central Asia, the Middle East, and Africa, including 300 in India.

The report says 48 % of Indian firms paid less than USD 5,000, while 10 % paid USD 1 million or more. it was the highest rate of ransom paid across all 31 countries surveyed.* Ninety seven percent of organizations said the attack had impacted their ability to operate, and 92 % of the victims said they had lost business or revenue because of the attack.

Cybersecurity is now a boardroom agenda.

“Every crisis has a silver lining and for the pandemic, it has been the accelerated adoption of digital solutions across enterprises and governments. Decade’s worth of digital transformation has taken place in the last two years and India’s technology industry has emerged as the preferred digital solutions partner with cybersecurity as a key growth vertical. Cybersecurity is now a boardroom agenda and offers tremendous opportunities for India’s tech industry to build innovative solutions and services,” said President of NASSCOM, Debjani Ghosh.

So what can we do.

Experts say, as individuals, the first and foremost thing to do is to get an additional security layer during login. This includes two-factor authentication, FIDO Security Key, Facial Recognition and Single-Use Code. When a password is combined with another layer of security check, the login process becomes even more secure.

Clearly, there is a huge demand for cybersecurity talent and this is only expected to increase as Indian cybersecurity companies expand its global footprint across the US, Canada, UK, France, Australia, Singapore, and UAE.

infyni offers live Cybersecurity courses taken by veterans from the industry. For more details on prices, drop us a mail at : info@infyni.com

Author : Dr. Anjana Das

Excerpts from Business Standard, Economic Times.