Indian firms get 500,000 security alerts, but 39% go unattended: Cisco

Indian companies receive over 0.5 million security alerts a day, but nearly 39 per cent of these goes unattended due to lack of required skill sets in organisations, a report by tech giant Cisco said on Wednesday.

The report, titled Cisco 2018 Asia-Pacific Security Capabilities Benchmark Study, said India Inc faces one of the highest levels of cybersecurity threats in the Asia-Pacific region with over 0.5 million security alerts coming in on a daily basis.

This, it said, is nearly thrice the number of alerts faced by global companies.

However, nearly 39 per cent or about up to 0.2 million alerts go unattended due to lack of required skill sets, in line with global peers in the APAC region who left half of the "legitimate" cyber threat alerts unattended, it added.

"This presents a significant concern for the cybersecurity defenders, who need to identify the genuine threats from a vast number of daily alerts," the report said.

The report found that India witnessed the second highest instances of "legitimate threats" in the Asia-Pacific region (44 per cent), behind Australia (65 per cent).

While 56 per cent of the investigated alerts turn out to be false, security experts need to ensure that they are working on the right alerts.

"...hence, more work is needed to equip security professionals with adequate tools to help them get more accurate information about their environment and the attacks happening against it," it said.

Interestingly, the report said Indian breaches caused a lower financial impact as opposed to its regional counterparts with 27 per cent of Indian respondents reporting the cost of a breach to less than $1,00,000 (Rs 7.23 million).

A fifth of the Indian respondents said a breach cost them between $5-10 million (Rs 360-730 million).

The cost of a breach is highest in Australia with 52 per cent respondents saying the attack costs them between $1-5 million. The cost includes impact of lost revenue, loss of customers, and out of pocket expenses, etc.

"Companies and governments alike should consider adopting advanced security technologies that include machine learning and artificial intelligence capabilities and also look at bridging the gap of skilled cybersecurity professionals in the country through relevant training and support," Cisco Director, Security, Vishak Raman said.