Indian firms lose Rs 14 crore to data breaches in 8 months

The rising incidents of data breach are causing a huge impact on financials of the companies. According to the latest global study by IBM Security examining the same, the average cost of data breach in India stood at Rs 14 crore. The study spanning between August 2019 and April 2020 showed an increase of 9.4 per cent from 2019 findings.

"India is witnessing a change in the nature of cyber crimes, it is now extremely organised and collaborative with rising incidents of phishing attacks, social engineering attacks, etc. The Hybrid- work environment has further brought about a dynamic change in the way organisations look at their security posture. While companies are being aware of the importance of cybersecurity solutions, we witnessed a 9.4 per cent rise from last year in the total cost of data breach. Further, those with fully deployed security automation were able to detect and contain a breach more than 27 per cent faster than those with none," says Prashant Bhatkal, Security Software Leader, IBM India/South Asia

Top three root causes of data breach were reported to be malicious attack (53 per cent), system glitch (26 per cent) and human error (21 per cent). Rs 5,522 was the cost per lost or stolen record in the 2020 study, an increase of 10 per cent from 2019. Surprisingly, the average time to identify a data breach increased from 221 to 230 days, and the average time to contain a data breach increased from 77 to 83 days. Password reuse, not patching, and improperly configured cloud infrastructure are major cost exacerbation in a breach. Not only are they the most common ways through which attackers are creeping into companies, they are also the most financially damaging.

"In the SMB space, organizations are re-evaluating their risk management plans and planning to incorporate digital security into their various programs to build Digital Trust. In the enterprise space, while organizations have built some basic digital trust programs,  they are looking at the modernisation of their systems by adopting AI-driven security solutions.  They are also looking at ways to migrate easily from one platform to another without compromising on security. There are also modernization projects of existing tools to measure scalability,  cloud-readiness, and their compatibility to automatically leverage AI and orchestration capabilities to reduce the dependence on human intervention," adds Bhatkal.

As organisations look to expand their digital footprint, technologies like Automation, AI, and Cloud can help address skills gaps and support the security team to focus on larger issues. These technologies can enable a faster breach response and be more cost-efficient in the long run.

Over 500 organisations worldwide participated in the IBM Security global study - 2020 Cost of Data Breach Report, which was conducted by Ponemon Institute. The findings stated above are India specific based on responses of 47 companies that participated in the study and suffered data breach last year.

Also Read: Rafale in India: Rajnath Singh welcomes Rafales jets, says India can deter any threat now

Also Read: New education policy approved; HRD Ministry renamed as Education Ministry

Also Read: 88% employees in India favour work from home, claims study