India worst-hit by ransomware in Asia-Pacific region
Almost half of Indian companies have suffered multiple ransomware attacks during the last year, making India the country worst hit in the Asia-Pacific region. According to a report by CrowdStrike, 76% of Indian companies have suffered at least one ransomware attack, and 49% have suffered multiple attacks, the highest of all the countries surveyed.
India has also paid the highest average ransom of $2.9 million in the last year. The average ransomware payment was $1.3 million in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, $2.4 million in Asia-Pacific, and $1.1 million in the US. Ransoms of $5 million to $10 million were paid by 26% of Indian respondents, and another 26% paid $1 million to $2.5 million. When it comes to choosing whether to pay up or negotiate, 31% of Indian companies said they were most likely to pay, whereas 49% have attempted to negotiate with attackers.
60% of respondents in India said they had a comprehensive strategy in place to coordinate a response to a ransomware attack.
The survey also identified some of the prominent security concerns for Indian organizations: identity-centric compromises (password/credential thefts) are a concern at 49% of organizations, attacks on industrial control or SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) systems worry 46%, and 41% see general malware as a threat.
Indian banks to spend $1 billion on public cloud initiatives by 2025
Indian banks are expected to revamp their legacy IT infrastructure for enhancements in payment, liquidity, and trade services by expanding as-a-service capabilities to add value to their services.
Banks are investing in appropriate technologies to survive in the digital marketplace and therefore, spend more than $1 billion by 2025 on public cloud initiatives emphasizing the prominence of cloud in driving tech transformations, according to a recent IDC report on Indian banking.
IDC also expects IT spending for treasury-as-a-service capabilities to cross $66 million by 2025, at an annual growth rate of 20%.
Transaction banking services will also witness increased adoption of AI to improve the speed and efficiency of payments. Therefore, it is expected that 40% of payments will be optimized using AI-derived routing models by 2025. Implementing AI-optimized payments will require capturing and leveraging payment data with end-to-end visibility.
Cybersecurity is a top priority for Indian CIOs
Cybersecurity continues to be the top priority for Indian CIOs in 2022, according to a Gartner survey. 64% of the CIOs surveyed said they will increase their spending on technologies related to cybersecurity and information security in 2022, higher than the global average of 57%.
As enterprises re-assess their strategies for the new hybrid work model, digital trust will be the pillar to ensure seamless and secure transition across both on-premises and cloud environments, according to an IDC report. Therefore, organizations are prioritizing and supporting funding towards data security, privacy, and compliance solutions.
The IDC report reveals that 35% of organizations in India will allocate half of their security budgets to cross-technology ecosystems/platforms designed for rapid consumption and unified security capabilities to drive agile innovation. The report also finds out that 22% of technology buyers in India that span different locations, clouds, remote workers, and devices will turn to network security as a service to ensure consistent protection.
“There will be a stronger push towards the use of analytics, risk management, security integration, and automation for better decision-making process,” says Shweta Baidya, senior manager, software and IT services at IDC India in the report.
However, Gartner’s research shows that there is a significant shortage of skilled cybersecurity professionals and so organizations often rely on security service providers to meet their cybersecurity needs.
Therefore, the spending on security services is expected to reach $1 billion in 2022, followed by network security equipment and infrastructure protection.