Acronis released its 2020 Cyber Readiness Report, evaluating the readiness of businesses in dealing with cyberthreats before and after the COVID-19 pandemic, finding that businesses in India have been most affected by cyberattacks.

In surveying 3,400 remote employees from 17 countries, it revealed that businesses in India are among the most affected by cyberattacks after shifting their operations online during the pandemic.

The report states that 31% of companies around the world are attacked by external malware threats at least once a day, but in India cyberattacks occurs twice as often, followed by the US and United Arab Emirates.

In the report, 39% of companies are also said to have encountered some of the most common cyberattacks, including phishing, distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks and video conferencing attacks, particularly on Zoom and Cisco Webex. 

Among these attacks, phishing was ranked the highest, which is likely caused by a lack of action taken to prevent these attacks like implementing URL filtering, vulnerability assessments and patch management. 

In Singapore, companies prioritise assessments and patch management more than any other country, while Japan puts the focus on remote monitoring and management.

While it is the least experienced type of attack, almost half of the companies surveyed chose to focus on tackling these issues. However, these cyberattacks were still higher than the global average in Singapore and India.

It is also because of weak cybersecurity that Indian companies end up spending more to upgrade IT infrastructure. 

Of all 17 countries surveyed, including Singapore and Japan, India’s IT costs have increased the most, reporting a near-60% inflation in spending to support employees that are working from home.

Acronis attributes the reasons behind the prevalence of cyberattacks to the lack of preparation and expertise in cybersecurity and cloud technology. The absence of a universal cyber law to keep up with changing workplace circumstances also leaves businesses exposed to foreign threats.

“The cyberthreat landscape has changed dramatically during the past few years, and in the last six months in particular. Traditional standalone antivirus and backup solutions are unable to protect against modern cyberthreats,” said Serguei “SB” Beloussov, the Founder and CEO of Acronis.

Of all respondents, 88% expressed a wish to continue working remotely, and 92% expect their companies to invest in better infrastructure for a workplace digital transformation. This is especially true in the Asia Pacific region, as the highest levels of adoption of workplace collaboration tools were from remote workers in Australia, Singapore, and India.

Yet, while workers felt better equipped to work from home compared to other countries, India was one of the countries most likely to experience difficulties in adding new devices to their corporate network, with lack of hardware or hardware failure proving to be the most challenging for remote workers in India.

Remote work is likely to be a lasting product of a post-pandemic world, and organisations should modernise current data protection practices to minimise unwanted loss caused by cybersecurity risks.

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