As COVID-19 struck last year, governments around the world, including in India, announced nationwide lockdowns, forcing millions of people to work from home. While companies were quick to shift office computers and laptops to the homes of employees to facilitate remote working, it also led to a huge rise in enterprise data and cyber security risks, forcing companies to spend more on the same.
Technology research firm Gartner estimates enterprise information security and risk management end user spending in India will touch $2.08 billion in 2021, up 9.5 per cent from a year ago.
“The increase in focus on digital business and due to the pandemic situation, the overnight move to remote work force and from having two offices and two branches to 2,000 offices, where each employee now represents one single office, it becomes difficult for you to manage the security and that is the reason, organisations realised that security is no longer just a transformational thing, but fundamental for operations and business continuity,” said Prateek Bhajanka, senior principal research analyst at Gartner.
In 2020, it was observed initially that companies cut back on spending including on IT (information technology) to manage costs; however, the trend is now reversing.
“It is not just digital business that will be able to continue, but you will have to look at making it a secure digital business. Hence in 2021, we do see a refreshed and renewed rigor in allotting security budgets and implementing new programmes in the industry,” said Bhajanka.
While the 9.5 per cent growth in spending by Indian enterprises is faster than some of the mature markets in the Asia Pacific, it is slower than the 10.7 per cent spending in some of the emerging markets in the region, noted Gartner.
With millions of employees now working from home, cloud infrastructure has been crucial in ensuring business continuity. Therefore, cloud security and integrated risk management will see the highest growth in 2021. Last year, spending on cloud security grew 131.5 per cent to $9 million. This year, it is seen surging more than three times to $31 million, according to Gartner.
“India is at an early stage of cloud adoption and the pandemic only accelerated this shift as organisations moved to the cloud to achieve cost efficiency and business continuity. Hyperscalers, such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud, have increased their investment in data centers in India, further catalysing Indian organisations’ move to cloud,” according to Bhajanka.
Companies are also expected to deploy threat detection and response programmes and move to cloud delivered security capabilities so that there is consistent security coverage working from office, home or off-site locations, noted Gartner.
Other than cloud security, spending on integrated risk management is expected to go up 27.8 per cent to $123 million from $96 million and spending on data security is seen going up 17 per cent to $116 million from $99 million, it added.
While the pandemic prompted enterprises to strengthen cyber security, individuals transacting digitally or working from personal computers and laptops also surged, and that has made data extremely vulnerable, say experts.
“In the past people would rob from banks. Now, cybercriminals are stealing personal data or enterprise data that is becoming more attractive, so there needs to be a new policy that has to be implemented,” said Ram Seethepalli, CEO, Cyberior by Europ Assistance India, a provider of cyber fraud and identity protection solutions.
While companies are doing their bit by increasing spending on cyber security, individuals too need to take data and cyber security seriously.
“While transacting on a device or accessing links, considering how secure your device is, cyber thefts can occur. Hence, it is important to protect your devices,” added Seethepalli.
