Half of Indian IT leaders feel security missing component in data policy

As many as 49 per cent of Indian IT industry leaders feel that security is a missing component in their organisation's data policy, a study by US-based data security firm Rubrik has revealed.

As marquee brands continue to reveal the challenges of successful cyber attacks targeting their business data, the report said it has found a "stark reality".

It says that globally, about one in every two organisations surveyed suffered a loss of sensitive data during last year.

The research was conducted in the US, the UK, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Japan, Australia, Singapore, and India between June 30 and July 11, 2023.

The data includes over 35 exabytes of logical storage secured and more than 24 billion sensitive data records from January 2022 through July 2023.

In fact, one of six organisations experienced multiple losses of data in the past 12 months, the report, which was released on Wednesday, said.

In the research report, 'The State of Data Security: The Journey to Secure an Uncertain Future,' Rubrik Zero Labs provides a timely view into the increasingly commonplace problem of cyber risks and the challenge to secure data across an organisation's expanding surface area, it stated.

New technologies -- from Artificial Intelligence (AI) to cloud -- continue to create opportunities for modern cybersecurity threats that capitalise on the explosion of data worldwide, according to more than 1,600 IT and security decision-makers at companies having 500 or more employees that took part in the survey spanning across the countries.

In India, the New Rubrik Data Security Report stated that 49 per cent of IT leaders feel that security is a missing component in their organisation's data policy, while 30 per cent see their organisation as high risk of material loss of sensitive data in the next 12 months.

The report also said 54 per cent of Indian IT leaders identify malicious cybercriminal activities as the greatest risk to their organisation's data while 34 per cent of them agree that their ability to manage risk to data security has not kept pace with their growth in data.

Similarly, 54 per cent of Indian companies believe AI adoption will positively impact their ability to secure sensitive data, while 24 per cent foresee no impact, as per the report.

"We see that left unattended, today's data proliferation can cripple businesses. Organizations need to have the right visibility into their data to secure it, with a clear plan for cyber resilience that delivers business continuity," Steven Stone, Head of Rubrik Zero Labs, said in the statement.

Abhilash Purushothaman, Vice-President & General Manager, Rubrik (Asia), said in the statement that the report serves as a wake-up call for Indian IT leaders.

It emphasises the crucial importance of data resilience and data security in today's hyper-distributed environment, highlighting the elevated risks for sensitive data, particularly in the face of rapidly evolving, sophisticated ransomware attacks, he added.

The study was commissioned by Rubrik and conducted by Wakefield Research among more than 1,600 IT and security decision-makers at companies of 500 or more employees.

Half of the respondents were CIOs and CISOs, while the remaining 50 per cent were VPs and directors of IT and security.

The survey supplemented Rubrik telemetry, looking at more than 5,000 clients across 22 industries and 67 countries.