According to a study by Frost and Sullivan and commissioned by Microsoft, cyberattacks can cost organisations across India $10.4 million on an average. This includes direct cost, indirect causes like jobs losses and macroeconomic factors. While direct cost accounts for about $0.9 million only, indirect cost such as job losses and loss of reputation accounts for about $3.1 million. Macroeconomic impact such as reduced customer and enterprise spending can be around $6.3 million.

The study was based on a survey of 1,300 business and IT decision makers from mid-sized and large organisations across 13 Asia Pacific countries.

Of all the cyberattacks, manufacturing accounts for about 18 per cent, financial services account for about 12 per cent and government account for about 11 per cent.

The study observed that around 62 per cent of the organisationsin India have fallen prey to cyberattacks. Also, only 38 per cent of the companies have done regular forensic or data breach assessment to ensure that there is no security threat in the country.

According to the study, the ongoing movement to digital observed among majority of the companies has made cyber security a key focus area for these companies. However, cyber security figures only at the later stage of the digital transformation project rather than the beginning. The study pointed out that over 40 per cent of the companies consider cyber security at the latter stages of the project, while only 20 per cent consider it at the beginning of the project.

In addition, the report highlighted that the huge number of security control solutions available in the market hasn’t really helped increase the security of companies, instead it has had an opposite impact. As per the study, organisations with more than 50 security solutions encountered more incidents than ones with less.

In conclusion, the report recommended that the solution lies in integrating cybersecurity with the product and looking at it as an enabler for digital transformation process. Further, organisations should leverage artificial intelligence and automation in cyber security to achieve faster and accurate detection of threats.