It’s no news that Cyber Crime is on the rise in India. From privacy issues to identity theft, to insecure hack and phish attacks, the list is endless. Though cyber law is improving and steps are taken to stop it from proliferating, (check out our coverage of India’s first cyber court, and the awareness initiatives by the AP Government) the threat is quite huge.
A recent newspaper article in the Hindu highlighted the seriousness of cyber crime. “Online crime is getting bigger by the day. Cyber criminals make more money than thieves and underworld dons,” says Websense Regional Director for India and SAARC, Mr Surendra Singh. He stated that 2009 alone saw in increase in the number of malicious Web sites by 233% (and that in the first half of the year). Overall, the increase in 671% over the last one year. Some theorize that the recession has had a major impact. With so many people desperate for jobs and quick earnings, the scope of luring them into cons becomes esaier. The Security Labs Threatseeker Network conducted a study and found that emails with links to spam and malicious sistes contributed the most to the security landscape. With the widespread growth of social networks, policing Web 2.0 is also becoming increasingly difficult.
Mr Surendra Singh also commented about how criminals were becoming more organised while the law is yet to make a significant leap in the way the prevent the happenings.
On a similar note, another news story mentions how Indian companies are most vulnerable to web attacks.Symantec (makers of the famous Norton Antivirus) and research agency Frost and Sullivan independently conducted tests before concluding that India fares the worst among its neighbours when it comes to Internet Security. Indian companies, more importantly are more susceptible to malicious activities.
The problem lies with the lack of awareness. That results in unpreparedness. Most companies in the West have well defined concepts of IT policies, and data management systems. When it comes to security and infrastructure protection, Indian companies fare quite badly. Ken Schneider, CTO (security and compliance), Symantec, said: “While data theft is the prime reason for attacks, 61% of Indian SMBs are unaware of security threats and 68% do not consider data loss as a major threat. SMBs have so far not been specifically targeted, but as cyber crime is on the rise, it won’t be long before they’ll start feeling the pinch.
According to Tony Murphy, solutions head (manufacturing), Datacraft: “The next two years are critical, as security threats will increase. Manufacturing companies are expanding their IT infrastructure, thus increasing the complexity of operations. However, they are not investing enough to meet challenges thrown up by this complexity. Most of them are also not compliant with the latest security standards,” Mr Murphy remarked. Datacraft — a company providing software solutions for the manufacturing industry — had commissioned Frost and Sullivan to conduct a security-compliance survey of manufacturing companies in the country.
The above two news articles are worth considering. India is yet to seem dynamic change in the way we deal with the Internet. With booming growth in the digital market, with talks about e-Governance and suchlike, is it not time we took stronger and more importantly, quicker strides?
