Data Security Council of India (DSCI), in partnership with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) has published its report titled, “The future ahead: Evolving cybersecurity priorities in India. Businesses all over the world are undergoing rapid transformation, adopting emerging technologies and integrating the same into their workflows. New technologies like AI, ML, RPA and others are helping organizations to streamline their business processes and customer service delivery. However, it also makes the system vulnerable to upgraded and sophisticated cyber-attacks.
Under this background wherein we all are experiencing a technological boom, this report aims to highlight the ever-changing demands and needs of cybersecurity in India. In order to assess and understand the cybersecurity landscape, over 100 Indian organizations have been surveyed on the changing cybersecurity priorities and requirements. The respondents of this survey include CIOs, CISOs, CTOs, and other major stakeholders who play a pivotal role in prioritizing cybersecurity measures. This report delves into 4 main areas of focus which are:
Threat landscape: Helps in understanding how organizations respond to the changing cybersecurity threats faced by them.
The future of business: Aims to gauge the way forward for businesses amidst these changing times.
Cyber security priorities: Highlights the priorities with respect to cybersecurity measures and enhancing the security system in place.
Optimizing cyber security: To understand how executives are optimizing the investment made on cyber security.
Transforming the business workflows and processes
India, along with the world is emerging from the devastating impacts of the Covid-19 on businesses, communities, consumers and other verticals. There has been a dynamic and fundamental shift from the traditional way of doing business to the new digital world. Every organization, irrespective of the sector, is transforming their ways of working to address the most profound challenges faced by them. In this way, businesses are making the most of the exciting and tremendous opportunities lay ahead of them. In this report, the surveyors have responded on the following 5 parameters regarding the future of business. These are:
Digital Transformation: Almost 49% of the respondents agree that digital transformation will be the way forward for all businesses and is the need of the hour.
Robust Business Systems: More that 43% are in favour of investing in building or upgrading/enhancing business resilience in order to make them more effective to the looming cyber security threats.
Cloud Technology Adoption: Over 38% of the executives strongly agree that adoption of cloud technology will play a crucial role in the future of businesses.
Transformation of Supply Chain: More than 12% of the respondents predict a monumental shift in procurement, with more focus on local suppliers.
Optimization of Resources: Nearly 41% believe that efficient and diligent performance with optimized allocation of resources is going to be the top priority for businesses in future.
Strategizing Cyber Security Priorities
Through this survey, we find that upgrading threat management capabilities is the top-most priority for Indian businesses. This was followed by identity and access management, securing the work from anywhere setup, user behaviour and robustness of cloud technology. Let us investigate these aspects individually.
Cyber Threat Management: Cyber threat management with risk-based vulnerability is the most important priority for Indian organizations. More than 68% of the surveyors have opined that prioritizing threat management capabilities is one of the top three priorities.
Advanced Identity & Access Management (IAM): More than 59% of Indian executives say that prioritizing the advancement/upgradation of IAM solutions is the key as companies are looking to enhance them. Businesses are focusing more on agile solutions for IAM requirements and implementing several turnkey solutions.
Securing the work-from-anywhere setup: 54% of the respondents are of the view that almost 50% of the workforce will be working remotely. Hence, they say that organizations are focusing more on securing the remote working environment and creating a more robust security culture through training and awareness.
User Behaviour Analytics: 43% of executives say that businesses are looking to leverage advanced, big data analytics to monitor consumer behaviour. This will help businesses to identify anomalous behaviour using advanced data and behaviour analytics. Despite this, almost 12.5% do agree that implementation of AI, ML and other new technologies for securing the system should be the main focus as well.
Secure Cloud Computing: 29% say that organizations are prioritizing enhancing the security of cloud computing. They are of the opinion that accelerating secure cloud adoption is also the top priority for businesses who have not yet transitioned to cloud technologies.
Read Next: Top 11 Cyber Security Solutions for Businesses
Sources: https://www.dsci.in/content/evolving-cybersecurity-priorities-india#report-download
