As the number of ‘disruptive’ cyber attacks witnessed a sharp increase, Indian enterprises have increased cybersecurity budgets by 75 per cent in 2023.

“A notable 67 per cent of Indian government and essential service entities reported encountering a surge of over 50 per cent in disruptive attacks in 2022-23,” cybersecurity solutions company Palo Alto Networks said.

The company has surveyed 200 Indian IT decision-makers, chief technology officers, chief information officers, and senior directors of various companies to understand the state of cybersecurity in the country.

The respondents belonged to sectors such as banking and finance, essential services, telecom , retail, tech, IT, hospitality, manufacturing, transport and logistics companies.

“Although India saw a remarkable 75 per cent increase in cybersecurity budget allocation for 2023 compared to the previous year (one of the highest increases in the APAC region), it also experienced the highest number of disruptive cyber attacks,” the report said.

Critical infra at risk

The company said the country’s critical infrastructure, public sector and essential services faced a substantial risk of cyber attacks.

“Our findings show that the transport, manufacturing, and public sectors have borne the brunt of advanced attacks. As India embraces digital transformation, it is mission critical to have a cybersecurity-first approach,” Anil Valluri, Managing Director and Regional Vice-President of India & SAARC, Palo Alto Networks, said.

“Prioritising the cybersecurity of essential service networks is paramount as it safeguards critical infrastructure and ensures seamless delivery of crucial services, thereby maintaining public safety and national stability,” he said.

Among the industry verticals, 66 per cent of the manufacturing firms faced increased risks from unsecured IoT devices connected to the network, far more than other sectors.

“About 83 per cent of transport and logistics organisations perceive their risk level as high or very high,” the survey said.

The majority of businesses (95 per cent) said they were actively moving to an increasingly automated security stack.

About 45 per cent of the businesses saw more than 50 per cent increase in disruptive attacks - the highest in the Asia-Pacific region. “One-third (35 per cent ) of the organisations are more concerned about social engineering attacks than the APAC average (29 per cent ),” the report said.. 

Zero-trust approach

Two-thirds of the respondents said that ChatGPT will positively impact business tasks like content creation and report generation.

“Enterprises, regardless of their size, must proactively adopt a zero trust (trust no one) architecture to secure distributed enterprise networks. Automating the SOC (security operations centre) is also essential for improving efficiency, enabling faster detection and response to cyber threats, and allowing analysts to focus on strategic initiatives,” Anil pointed out.

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