O pen B ar
Cyber-Security
A Big Reality,
Time To Face It
Aakriti Raizada Sharma
A
recent global survey has found about 43
percent of cyber-attacks to be targeted at
small and medium enterprises (SMEs), with
only 14 percent of them equipped to deal with such
risks. According to the findings, nearly 60 percent of SMEs are forced to shut shop within six months of a
cyber-attack. Small and medium retailers face the biggest challenge in terms of updating their hardware at
multiple locations without losing sight of productivity and staying abreast of the latest technology so as to
tackle increasingly sophisticated techniques used by hackers.
Founder & Managing Editor
Legal Era Magazine, Legal Media Group
Research revealed that over the past one year, in UK alone, as many as 875,000 SMEs had already
faced cyber-attacks, with London-based companies being the worst affected. In India, 91 percent of SMEs
were found to believe that they were at risk because of the complexity of business and IT, notwithstanding
the country’s status as global information technology services’ leader and as one of the fastest-growing
economies in the world. This is because a majority of Indians are yet to see a computer in their lifetime. It is
also because India fares poorly in terms of cyber-security, with companies here continuing to be easy prey
for cyber-criminals. So much so that in a 2016 APAC study, it emerged that Indian SMEs had been the most
vulnerable to cyber-attacks in the three-year period between 2013 and 2016.
India can ill-afford cyber-attacks which cost the country more than $4 billion, with the number only set to
inflate to $20 billion over the next 10 years. Part of the problem is that Indian companies tend to place
cyber-security very low in their list of priorities, which must change. Rather than being sitting ducks for
cyber-criminals, our companies must gear up for vulnerabilities by keeping up with technological changes
and updating their operating systems, browsers, anti-virus software, whatever it takes.
Legal Era believes in creating awareness and will publish expert articles on cyber crimes and the challenges
in the next edition. Keep your eye on.
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| L egal E ra | N ovember 2017