As WFH becomes the norm, cyber security firms see an uptick in demand

The unabated spread of the coronavirus is pushing many organisations to adopt a full-time work from home model for their entire workforce. But in the process, they have been experiencing a lot of holdups in terms of putting in place technology that would allow a secure and safe transition, thanks to increasing cyber attacks and data breaches. Cyber criminals and hackers have been on the prowl a lot, of late, with targeted malware and phishing attacks.

“It is important for us to understand that technology controls were never designed keeping in mind work from home,” said Saket Modi, co-founder & CEO, Lucideus, a Cyber Risk Quantification (CRQ) platform, adding “Today, as businesses go digital and adopt work from home as a part of business continuity, they require access from anywhere, anytime, any device to services that may not be located “inside” an on-premises data centre.”

Surge in demand

Over the past couple of months, platforms that provide cyber security solutions have been seeing a surge in demand for their offerings.

For instance, Lucideus’s Modi said that they have added 20 per cent new clientele since March and have seen a 200 per cent jump in revenue in the quarter ended June 2020, when compared to the same period last year.

CyberEye Research Labs, another cyber security company, has been seeing a 400 per cent surge in demand for its security hardening solutions and its cyber security up-skilling and awareness programmes.

Its founder and CEO, Ram Ganesh, said the demand is mostly from the government (to provide endpoint security to employees that access government data from their personal devices), from companies that have just set out to expand (who need endpoint security and virtual private network (VPN) provision) and from organisations and businesses that have been facing social engineering and phishing attacks.

Ganesh added that people have started taking endpoint security more seriously as individual devices have become a breeding ground for malicious attacks.

Another firm, CyRAACS, a cyber risk advisory and consulting services company, has, in fact, developed two new services - Work from Home Security Assessment and Advanced Malware Analysis.

“The former focusses on the security posture of organisations for remote working/work from home capabilities, while the latter focuses on identifying malware (active, residual or dormant) across systems,” said Suresh Iyer, its CEO and co-founder. He added that their core offering of vulnerability assessments and penetration testing for applications and IT infrastructure has also seen an increased demand.

Stronger security frameworks

This pent-up demand has been coming from across sectors, the top four being healthcare, banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI), manufacturing and IT/ITES (Information Technology Enabled Services). Experts said that, while periodic assessments used to be the norm earlier, firms are now keen on building and implementing stronger cyber and data security infrastructure.

“Organisations have realised now that cyber security can no longer be a footnote, it has to be a core focus to ensure sustainability and continued business growth,” noted CyRAACS’s Iyer.

He added that firms should adopt and implement a relevant cyber security framework to build a comprehensive security program. “This needs to be complemented by investing in the latest security technologies, building a workforce with the right skill sets and engaging partners to provide specific services/skills to support the cyber security programme,” Iyer said.