Only 24% of companies in India prepared to defend cybersecurity threats: Cisco report

Cybersecurity might be the focus area for enterprises in India, yet they are far from being prepared. The findings of Cisco’s Cybersecurity Readiness Index stated that only 24% of organisations in India have the ‘mature’ level of readiness needed to be resilient against today’s modern cybersecurity risks. Cisco had classified the companies into four stages of increasing readiness: Beginner, Formative, Progressive and Mature. Beginner was for companies in the initial stages of deployment of solutions and Mature meant those who have achieved advanced stages of deployment and are most ready to address security risks.

While the 24% India scored in terms of maturity might seem low, it is still higher than the global average of 15%. However, about 38% of companies in India fall into the Beginner or Formative stages. But all these numbers still indicate very low preparedness.

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In addition, 90% respondents of the survey expect a cybersecurity incident to disrupt their business in the next 12 to 24 months. Also, the cost of being unprepared can be substantial as 80% of respondents said they had a cybersecurity incident in the last 12 months, and 53% of those affected said it cost them at least $500,000.

“Organisations have moved from an operating model that was largely static to a hybrid world, which presents new and unique cybersecurity challenges. In this environment, understanding how organizations are preparing to deal with these new challenges is critical. The Index has been built with a focus on five core pillars of identity, devices, network, applications, and data, and examines organisational postures in securing these,” said Vish Iyer, Vice President, Architectures, Cisco APJC.

Hence, the index has been developed against the backdrop of a post-COVID, hybrid world, where users and data must be secured wherever work gets done. It was conducted by an independent third-party as a double-blind survey asking 6,700 private sector cybersecurity leaders across 27 markets to indicate which of these solutions they had deployed and the stage of deployment.

Given the non-readiness of organisations, Cisco says that by establishing a base, organisations can build on their strengths and prioritise the areas where they need more maturity and improve their resilience.

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“Cybersecurity is a top priority for businesses as they continue their digitisation journey. With hybrid work becoming mainstay and services being application-driven, it is critical that organisations close the security readiness gap,” said Samir Mishra, Director, Security Business Group, Cisco India & SAARC. “Assessing security readiness and ensuring that organisations adopt an integrated platform approach to secure the five key pillars will play an integral role in helping businesses futureproof themselves.” These five core pillars that form the baseline of required defenses: identity, devices, network, application workloads, and data, and encompasses 19 different solutions within the pillars, need to be protected with a mix of point tools and integrated platforms to achieve security resilience while reducing complexity. Only then will businesses be able to close the cybersecurity readiness gap.

Encouraging finding from the survey is that companies are taking action and 95% respondents said their organisations plan to increase their cybersecurity budget by at least 10% over the next 12 months.

Also read: 90% of organisations globally cannot detect, contain and resolve cyber threats within the first hour