“Risk assessment of relevant threats is necessary”

In a chat with VARINDIA, Bhaskar Agastya- Country Manager- Sales, Ixia, India discusses the present security landscape of India, effects of WannaCry in the country, measures to be taken by a company etc

With the growing trend of Internet of Things (IoT), Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) etc India is witnessing a rise in the cyber security market. The cyber threats are becoming complex everyday which makes organizations more vulnerable. In India many organizations are still using obsolete operating system which makes it easy for the criminals to attack.     

“According to a survey by EY, most enterprises are not paying enough attention in building essential capabilities to safeguard themselves from cyber threats - 55 % do not have a formal, threat intelligence program, while 44 % do not have vulnerability identification capability. Further, more than a third does not have a security operations center to continuously monitor the systems,” says Bhaskar Agastya- Country Manager- Sales, Ixia, India.

Security landscape of India
Cyber attacks have evolved in all these years and with the utilization of sophisticated tools the cyber criminals carry out various kinds of  attacks. In last two years, the security breaches in the country have increased considerably.   

“The current cyber security landscape in India presents a far more risky scenario in terms of sophistication of the attacks. Today, cybercriminals are leveraging sophisticated tools to execute various modes of cyber-attacks such as Advanced Persistent Threat attack, hacking, data leakage and so on. According to recent reports, there has been a 40 % quantum jump in the number of security breaches in the country in the past two years, and the value tickets of these breaches are also on the rise in equal proportion, if not more,” explains Bhaskar.  

Effects of WannaCry in India
Off late, the massive hue and cry that took place across the cyber world was due to a new ransomware named WannaCry. Apart from countries like United Kingdom, USA, Spain, Russia etc, India has also been one of the victims of this ransomware attack. The number of compromised computers in India will be high as a major chunk of the functioning systems run on pirated Microsoft software.    

“India was the third highest worst hit nation by the ransomware attack with more than 40,000 computers affected. Also, the outspread of attacks in India was quite high owing to the number of computers functioning on the pirated version of Microsoft.  ATM machines were stalled for a couple days because banks weren't sure of the effect of the attacks. However, very few victims came forward to report it. Barring few attacks on standalone machines there has been no report of any substantial disruption. Usually, mid and small-sized companies fall prey to these attacks due to lack of robust cyber security policy & preparedness when compared to large organizations,” describes Bhaskar.    

Measures to follow 
To keep any business at bay from the cyber attacks, risk assessment is important to get a clear picture of the possible threats, number of times it is expected to occur and also estimated loss. These information will help companies position them in a better way against cyber threats.  

“Each business is exposed to different types of threats and one must think through the list of threats that are worth worrying over. This is why a risk assessment of relevant threats is necessary. It will give you a fair understanding of which risks are applicable to the business, how often it is expected to occur and the estimated loss. With the help of this information, businesses will be in a better position to take a call on which risks to address first and what kind of remedial measures to adopt. Irrespective of the size of the business, every organization must have a clear security policy in place. A policy that defines the usage of IT resources by employees is an absolute necessity these days,” suggests Bhaskar. 

He adds, “Organizations must also use an in-depth strategy while designing a secure network. It is ideal to not rely on a single device or product completely to administer security. Make sure to explore the security capabilities of a firewall or a router and confirm that software and servers are up-to-date. Employing application proxies for common applications and protocols is another way to ensure security by not revealing internal hosts to the Internet. It is very crucial to keep a tab on what operating system is running on each system on the network. This will help in understanding what vulnerabilities exist in each operating system and take relevant precautionary measures. Additionally, put in place an aggressive method of patching the operating system frequently to reduce the exposure from vulnerabilities.

What will you do to address the aftermath of a security breach? The answer is an organized method to address and control the effect. In simple words, an incident response plan is a set of instructions to detect, respond and limit the impact of a security breach. Every business must have a plan in place on how to respond in the event of an incident.”

Government initiatives & Cyber Security
The digital transformation that is taking place in the country will demand superior defense from threats. The cyber criminals may exploit the initiatives. So to make these initiatives effective government needs to make sure that the connected devices are secured.

“The cohesive digital footprint shaped by Digital India and Smart Cities is likely to bring challenging and increasing demand on resources to defend against the growing threat levels and entry points. Although both Smart Cities and Digital India will generate new economic and social opportunities, there will also be an increasingly large attack surface for criminals to exploit. Government’s initiatives to transform the country into a digitally connected economy can be effective only when the security of the connected devices is guaranteed,” views Bhaskar. 

Aparna Mullick
aparna@varindia.com