Over the last three and a half years, cyberattacks in India have seen a sharp increase. According to data tracked by the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), India saw a 193.6% surge in cyber attacks from 2019 to 2020, climbing from 394,499 attacks to 1.1 million attacks. This upward trend, while muted in comparison, continued in 2021, increasing 21.1% from 2020 to 2021, as 1.4 million attacks were recorded. It appears that 2022 will likely see a continuation in this upward growth, as we’ve already seen 674,000 attacks in just half of the year (up until June).
It’s difficult to pinpoint a root cause for this trend, though the pandemic accelerated a shift towards remote work in 2020, which could have exposed organizations that were rushing to accommodate this newly minted remote workforce, playing a part in the rise. It’s become increasingly important for organizations in India to implement proactive measures, as reactively responding to attacks is not sufficient, particularly in protecting user data. Whether it’s addressing unpatched vulnerabilities, identifying misconfigurations of databases and other cloud-connected systems, due diligence is the key to putting organizations in the best position to defend against cyberattacks.—Satnam Narang, Sr. Staff Research Engineer, Tenable.