A recent report has raised concerns about the ability of Indian organizations to fend off cyberattacks, with nearly half of such incidents going unprevented due to a lack of proactive measures. According to the report, 64 percent of cybersecurity teams are too preoccupied with critical incidents to take an aggressive stance against potential threats.
The report, conducted by Columbia-based cybersecurity firm Tenable, surveyed 825 IT and cybersecurity professionals, including 69 individuals from India, in 2023. It revealed that 78 percent of Indian respondents believed their organizations could improve their defenses against cyberattacks if more resources were dedicated to preventive cybersecurity efforts.
However, the study also found that 71 percent of organizations in India prioritized uptime over essential tasks such as patching and remediation, creating a disconnect between IT and security teams. This lack of coordination was acknowledged by 43 percent of Indian organizations, further complicating their ability to respond effectively to cyber threats.
One of the key findings of the report was that 81 percent of organizations relied on third-party programs for Software as a Service (SaaS) applications and services. Unfortunately, only 54 percent of these organizations had sufficient visibility into these third-party environments, hampering their ability to implement proactive security measures.
Tenable India Country Manager Kartik Shahani emphasized the situation’s urgency, stating, “In today’s threat landscape, by the time organizations react to cyberattacks, the battle is half lost.”
The report shed light on the structural and operational challenges within Indian organizations, highlighting a misalignment of goals between IT and security teams. This disconnect makes it difficult for these critical components of an organization to work together effectively toward a shared cybersecurity goal.
Shahani noted, “While there are no quick fixes to these challenges, implementing an exposure management program enables security professionals to allocate time and resources better to focus on taking the preventive actions that legitimately reduce an organization’s cyber risk.
It requires security teams to place as much importance on proactive efforts as on reactive incident response efforts. It requires security and IT professionals to consider how siloed organizational structures — and the myriad security tools used in support of those silos — are hindering their ability to see what an attacker sees. And it requires a way for security professionals to analyze the data from disparate tools to empower them to draw meaningful insights they can apply to their risk reduction goals.”
The report’s data was drawn from a study titled “Old Habits Die Hard: How People, Process and Technology Challenges Are Hurting Cybersecurity Teams in India,” underlining the need for improved cybersecurity practices in Indian organizations.
