Digital attacks prove Indian BFSI firms costly - CIOL News Reports

Digital attacks prove Indian BFSI firms costly

Increasing e-commerce and mobile transactions by enterprises is identified as a reason for increased adoption of security, according to a study by Symantec Corp.

Thursday, August 18, 2011

NEW DELHI, INDIA: Regulatory and governance mandates are key drivers of IT security for 50 per cent of financial services enterprises, according to a study by Symantec Corp.

The survey, Symantec Security Check – Indian Financial Services Industry 2011 (Banking, Financial Services and Insurance industries), identifies that increasing e-commerce and mobile transactions by enterprises as another reason for increased adoption of security.

Survey Highlights

Digital attacks prove costly: During the last financial year, 23 per cent of respondents experienced an external attack ranging from phishing attempts, theft of proprietary information and denial of service attacks. External theft of confidential information was faced an average of 1.5 times and internal theft of information an average of 5.8 times.

Also read: How to manage security paradox?

Financial services enterprises face significant financial losses due to security breaches, with the average loss being Rs. 6.86 crore (Rs 68.6 million). This figure was nearly double for Indian banks, at Rs. 12.6 crore (Rs 126 million).

Sixty-seven per cent of respondents that experienced a data breach lost man hours, and 61 per cent stated that they had lost customers as a result. More than 80 per cent of respondents have faced downtime due to online attacks, and took an average of four hours to resume normal operations.

Compliance and governance driving IT security adoption: Fifty per cent of respondents from financial services enterprises in India cited compliance as the primary driver for adopting IT security. In fact, one in four respondents that experienced a digital attack faced monetary penalization.

Over the last year, the RBI has mandated two factor authentication at banks for all delivery channels. In the past 12 months, 31 per cent of respondent-banks invested in identity management, and state that investment in technologies to address such regulations is likely to continue.

According to the survey, technology investments during the next financial year will be made towards stronger governance, business continuity planning, securing mobile and wireless transactions, data loss prevention and network security.

Mobility and consumerization of IT pose security risks: The risk of exposing confidential information is increasing as customers explore new channels for financial transactions through e-commerce and mobile banking.

Besides increased mobile and online transactions (18 per cent), growing internal threats (15 per cent) are also significant factors driving security adoption. The survey revealed that eight out of ten employees at respondent organizations use endpoints, and that currently 81 per cent of smart phone users in these organizations access corporate information, and 57 per cent use instant messaging.

“CIOs at financial services enterprises in India are concerned about the security of their information and related losses, leading to crucial attention towards IT governance,” said Ajay Goel, managing director, India and SAARC, Symantec. “RBI guidelines, the impending Basel III compliance and the IT (Amendment) Act 2008 regulations are compelling the financial sector to take a close look at how they secure and manage their information.”

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light said on 8/18/2011 11:00:30 PM:
Recently, It’s getting even worse. Symantec is criminal & breaking the law. I can’t believe Symantec indulge David Freer & Suzy Walsham to get my person info through HR dept. for their own personal purposes, which is toally violating the privacy law. (as I have worked for Symantec before). As I called to Symantec headquarter & talked to legal Mona Ramamurthy & sent an email to all the management team (as they can’t pretend they didn’t know about it) and got no responses at all. What is Symantec management team’s thinking? What makes them to think they could break the law BOLDLY? Is US a legal & civilized country or what? Or Symantec thought they could just hide behind hundred of lawyers’ back and as one solo person I can barely hurt them at all? I wish President Obama would know this. Then he can tell the chairman & CEO of Symantec, Enrique Salem, the same words as he told Congressman Anthony Weiner “If I was him, I would resign” from Obama’s management advisory. I wish Symantec shareholders would know this, so they can sell the stocks to show their disagreement with their RUDE & ILLEGAL behaviors. I wish the press would start investigating this. Thank you.

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