‘Cyber Security Breaches On The Rise’
Robert Le Busque, regional MD for Australia, New Zealand and India at Verizon Enterprise Solutions, told BW Businessworld’s Monica Behura that cyber security breach had risen by 500 per cent in India post demonetisation.
Excerpts:
Verizon is the largest wireless communications service provider in the United States. What is your strategy for India?
The strategy we are adopting in India is the same everywhere. We help our customers understand the regulatory compliance framework, specifically in cyber security. In the Indian context, over the past three to six months, there have been significant events that have driven rapid maturity and rapid escalation towards cyber security in organisations. Demonetisation being an obvious point. We are looking to help our customers in the BFSI sector understand the impact of these changes from technology and regulatory perspective and help them navigate their way towards a higher level of cyber security compliance and a higher level of risk management as well. There has been evidence of a 500 per cent increase in cyber-crime among the partners we deal with in India post demonetisation.
Who are your clients in India?
Many corporate customers, as well as governments. Lots of customers from Indian MNC’s from the IT and IT services sector, the banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) sector, pharma and the manufacturing space.
In which sector is the breach more evident?
Altogether 75 per cent of data breaches and cyber crime are motivated. BFSI, hospitality and retail are the areas where you see a lot (of cyber security breaches) because of access to transaction data which can be monetised easily. There is also rise in intellectual property theft and increase in data breaches for financial services.
What can be expected in the Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report that will be out in April?
The important thing about this year’s report is that it says that the threats are not new. The same things that cyber criminals have been using to breach corporate systems to steal financial information, 10 years ago, are still working today. There is a big gap in the fundamentals and basics of information security as there is a rise in more mature types of cyber-crime in particular, ransom ware and phishing attacks.
What are the challenges in India?
The challenges in India are about awareness and helping organisations understand the significance of the threat. Also helping them understand though they have a robust IT security strategy, but the landscape is changing. Companies need to be far more agile. Skill development is also a big challenge and we need to address the outcast of the demonetisation. Skill, especially in the IT security space, is a big question.
This article was published in BW Businessworld issue dated 'April 2, 2017' with cover story titled 'India’s Fastest Growing Companies 2017'
