66 per cent Indian firms reported data breaches during remote working: Survey

Barracuda Networks, a leading provider of cloud-enabled security solutions, has highlighted key findings from a recent study on remote working trends in India. It reveals that Covid-19 has accelerated the introduction of remote working by at least five years for 59 per cent of organisations in India, yet the organisations must address relevant security challenges.

Conducted by independent research agency Censuswide, and commissioned by Barracuda, the Asia Pacific study interviewed 1,055 business decision-makers in India, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, and Hong Kong.

This includes 247 business leaders in India working across sectors and departments, to gain insights into their current mindset about the opportunities and challenges regarding the future of work trends resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic.

Shift in mindset

The study revealed that the mindset of business leaders in the region has now shifted to optimism, with 92 per cent planning to keep remote working in place for employee productivity and business continuity once the pandemic is over.

This is a significant shift in thinking among business leaders in the country as 76 per cent realised the positive impact that remote working model has had on their overall business productivity; 78 per cent agree with the fact that overall business productivity has increased since the shift to a remote workforce.

However, amid the Covid crisis, 89 per cent feel the necessity to accelerate their digital transformation in the next six months to ease the burdens placed on the traditional business model by remote working.

Taking to the cloud

A key component of this transformation is cloud computing. 83 per cent have fast-tracked their plans to move their data to a 100 per cent cloud-based model to create a new future for their business.

On average, 89 per cent agree that this shift will help reduce overall IT costs to support business growth.

However, despite the positive impact of the shift to remote working, many organisations in the country are facing multilateral security challenges while some are not even aware of the risks involved in connecting remotely.

The study indicated that 66 per cent of organisations in India have already had at least one data breach or cyber security incident since shifting to a remote working model. 67 per cent of respondents reported that employees had experienced an increase in email phishing attacks while 64 per cent of organisations expect an incident to occur in the next month.

The study noted that 70 per cent of the participants are concerned about unknown threats that will cause business disruption in the next six months.

Alarmingly, 53 per cent of organisations in India do not have an up-to-date cyber security strategy and solutions in place that cover all the vulnerabilities posed by full-time remote working. This is made more difficult by 79 per cent allowing employees to use personal email addresses and personal devices to conduct company work.

Reworking the new normal

Speaking on the survey results, Murali Urs, Country Manager India, Barracuda Networks, said in an official release: “Maintaining security practices is essential, but a step easily overlooked in the frantic rush to get everything set up to support remote working. More employees working from home means that more devices are connecting remotely, outside of the secured corporate network.”

He added: “It’s critical to understand what remote workers are doing with data that is rapidly going out of control, which indicates that organisations will have to rework the ‘new normal’ to make it more effective and more secure.”