More than half the companies in India have faced at least one data breach since going remote

Nearly 66 per cent of Indian organisations have had at least one data breach or cybersecurity incident since shifting to a remote working model during the pandemic, a survey by Barracuda Networks said on Thursday.

The findings indicated employees in 67 per cent of organisations experienced an increase in email phishing attacks.

While 64 per cent of organisations expect an incident to occur in the next month, 70 per cent are concerned about unknown threats that will cause business disruption in the next six months.

Additionally, 53 per cent of organisations in India do not have an up-to-date cybersecurity strategy and solutions in place that cover all the vulnerabilities posed by full-time remote working, said the survey by Barracuda, a leading provider of Cloud-enabled security solutions.

This is made more difficult by 79 per cent of organisations allowing employees to use personal email addresses and personal devices to conduct company work.

"More employees working from home means that more devices are connecting remotely, outside of the secured corporate network," Murali Urs, Country Manager India, Barracuda Networks, said in a statement.

"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."

The study is based on responses from over 1,000 business decision makers in India, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, and Hong Kong including 247 business leaders in India.

The study suggests that Covid-19 has accelerated the introduction of remote working by at least five years for 59 per cent of organisations in India, yet, organisations must address relevant security challenges.

Amid the crisis, 89 per cent business leaders 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.

A key component of this transformation is Cloud computing.

The study indicates that 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.

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