Only 24% of organizations surveyed in India have the “mature” level of preparedness needed to be resilient to today’s cybersecurity risks, according to new Cisco research released Tuesday.
Cisco has stated in a separate announcement that it intends to train 500,000 cybersecurity professionals over 3 years across India.
Cisco’s first-ever Cybersecurity Readiness Index shows which areas companies are doing well and where cybersecurity preparedness gaps will widen if global business and security leaders don’t take action.
Emphasizing that preparedness is critical, Cisco research found that 90% of respondents said they expected a cybersecurity incident to disrupt their business in the next 12 to 24 months.
India ranked high in the world rankings in terms of maturity (24%) and its cybersecurity preparedness scores are above the global average of 15%. About 38% of companies in India are at the stage of formation or formation.
The survey, conducted by an independent third party, asked 6,700 private sector cybersecurity leaders in 27 markets to indicate which solutions they deployed and at what stage of deployment. Companies were then divided into four stages of increasing readiness: start-up, emerging, progressive, and mature.
While novice (overall score less than 10 points) implies the initial stages of deployment of solutions, emerging ones (score from 11 to 44) have some level of deployment, but below-average cybersecurity preparedness indicators. In the index, progressive (score from 45 to 75) means significant deployment and above-average cyber readiness, while mature (score 76 and above) has reached advanced deployment stages and is most prepared to mitigate security risks.
While organizations in India are doing better than the global average, their numbers are still very low given the risks.
This readiness gap speaks volumes, according to Cisco, not least because 90% of respondents said they expected a cybersecurity incident to disrupt their business in the next 12 to 24 months.
The cost of not being prepared can be significant, as 80% of respondents said they experienced a cybersecurity incident in the past 12 months, and 53% of those affected said it cost them at least $500,000.
“Cybersecurity is a top priority for businesses continuing their digital transformation. As hybrid work becomes the foundation and services are application driven, it is imperative that organizations close the security readiness gap.” – Sameer Mishra, Director, Security Business Group, Cisco India. and SAARC said.
Business leaders must establish a baseline of “readiness” for the five security pillars to build secure and resilient organizations. This need is particularly important given that 95% of respondents plan to increase their security budgets by at least 10% over the next 12 months. By building a base, organizations can build on their strengths and prioritize areas where they need more maturity and resilience.
The five key pillars are identity, devices, network security, application workloads, and data.
Meanwhile, Cisco has announced its goal of training 500,000 people across India in cybersecurity skills over the next 3 years.
This goal is part of Cisco’s 10-year plan to empower 25 million people worldwide with digital skills through the Cisco Networking Academy. This year, the flagship program is celebrating its 25th anniversary. During this time, the program has reached 17.5 million students in 190 countries. Since starting in India, he has trained 1.2 million students through 718 partnerships with schools and organizations offering Networking Academy courses.
Two announcements were made at the Cisco India Summit (CIS) 2023 in Jaipur.
Cisco said India’s future growth and global competitiveness depended on building a strong digital economy, which in turn relies on a digitally skilled workforce.
“With the speed and scale of digitalization across the country, the demand for skilled cybersecurity professionals will grow as organizations seek to protect themselves from a changing and complex threat landscape,” Cisco said.
(Only the title and image of this report may have been remastered by Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is automatically generated from the syndicated feed.)
