India Inc fears carelessness of employees could cause cyber attacks: Survey

NEW DELHI: Despite the higher spending on cybersecurity, India Inc. feels it is not enough to ward off the threats. According to a survey by audit and consultancy firm EY, 75 per cent of surveyed said that their cybersecurity function does not fully meet the organisation’s needs. While 61 per cent felt that outdated information security architecture of Indian organisations and controls as the most important reason for increasing exposure to risk, 55 per cent were concerned about poor user awareness of mobile devices.

As per the survey titled -- Path to cyber resilience: Sense, Resist, React -- 58 per cent of Indian respondents fear that the next attack will be due to carelessness of employee, while another 38 per cent said that boards are not fully knowledgeable about cyber risks.

Launching the report, Gulshan Rai, National Cybersecurity Coordinator, National Security Council, Prime Minister’s Office said, “We are at the cusp of a cybersecurity paradigm shift and it is imperative that for the overall national security we join hands to share, evaluate and acquire threat intelligence and develop a robust operational framework to use this with security technologies." Rai said immense focus is needed to encourage technological innovations in cyber security to secure national critical infrastructure from cyber criminals.


Among threats, 54 per cent believe that cyber-attacks are primarily targeted at defacing/disrupting organisations or towards stealing intellectual property or data (51 per cent), followed by fraud (48 per cent). The survey also points out that while people are more confident of their ability to predict and detect a cyber-attack with 52 per cent saying that they would be able to do so, but not enough attention is being given to building basic, yet essential capabilities.

Nitin Bhatt, EY India’s Risk Advisory Leader said, “Disruptive innovations and the digital transformation of businesses and governments are exponentially enhancing cyber-risks. What is worrisome is that the response gap -- which is the difference between the abilities of the attackers and the capabilities of organisations is increasing as well, leading to this lack of confidence in the cybersecurity function.”