When Software Turns Malware: 76 Per Cent Of Indian Firms Suffered Cyber Attacks In 2018, Higher Than Global Average

According to a recently released report, 76 per cent of organisations based in India were targets of cyber attacks in the last year (2018). This is substantially higher than the global average of 68 per cent.

The report titled 7 Uncomfortable Truths of Endpoint Security was published by the security firm Sophos. Among the 12 countries that were surveyed, only Mexico and France had a higher incidence of online attacks than India. Japan and the UK had the least number of attacks, in that order.

According to the report, while 9.6 per cent of threats are discovered on mobile devices globally, this number is almost double at 18.8 per cent in India. This could be a reflection of both technology and cultural factors. “India also has one of the highest rates of bad app installation (on Android phones), increasing their propensity to mobile infections. In addition, sole reliance on mobile devices for business is much higher in India than in many other parts of the world,” the report added.

Larger Organisations More Vulnerable?

The report also noted that larger organisations suffered more cyber attacks (73 per cent) than smaller ones (63 per cent). However, this could either be due to larger organisations being considered more lucrative victims by perpetrators or because larger organisations were more aware that a cyber threat has hit them as they have more IT resources to detect and investigate issues.

Also Read: Sharing Is Caring? Not Always: OTP Thefts Increase In Bengaluru, Victims’ Carelessness To Blame