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Indian companies vulnerable to internet attacks

By siliconindia   |   Monday, 21 September 2009, 16:30 IST
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Indian companies vulnerable to internet attacks
Bangalore: A study done by internet and data security company Symantec and research agency Frost and Sullivan states that Indian companies are susceptible to internet threats and spend less on security. India stood at number one on the prevalence of internet virus attacks in the Asia Pacific and Japan region. Symantec has revealed this in the findings of its IT security scenario in 2008, as Datacraft, a company providing software solutions for the manufacturing industry had commissioned Frost and Sullivan to conduct a security compliance survey of manufacturing companies in the country. The findings show that India features among the top three countries in the region to be affected by vicious activities on the internet, which aim at stealing sensitive corporate information. The Frost and Sullivan survey in 2009 found that 92 percent of the companies had security vulnerabilities and were not spending on information security. Smaller and Medium Businesses (SMBs) do not seem worried as compared to the larger companies, which are taking steps for data security. "While data theft is the prime reason for attacks, 61 percent of Indian SMBs are unaware of IT security threats and 68 percent do not consider data loss as a major security threat. Unprotected infrastructure, lack of IT policies, poorly protected information and poorly managed systems are cause of concern for the businesses. Unless enterprises improve security protocols and measures to counter malicious activities, India will continue to be a soft target of internet threats," said Ken Schneider, CTO, Symantec. "The next two years are critical as security threats will increase. Manufacturing companies are expanding their IT infrastructure, thus increasing the complexity of operations. However, they are not investing enough to meet challenges thrown up by this complexity. Most of them are also not compliant with the latest security standards," said Tom Murphy, Solutions Head, Manufacturing, Datacraft. The survey revealed that incidences of spam are increasing and 12 percent of spam in the Asia-Pacific and Japan region originates from India. Mumbai features high in the prevalence of internet attacks contributing 37 percent of the affected computers followed by Chennai at 24 percent. The spam activities tripled in 2008 as compared to 2007 globally. According to a PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) report, Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) and business information contribute 32 percent and 68 percent respectively of data loss and Symantec's findings reveal that 59 percent of the employees who lost or left a job, walked away with some corporate information.

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