Aadhaar push driving Indian firms to up IT security spending: Report

Indians recognise encryption with Bring Your Own Key capabilities as the top security tool for securing sensitive data in Cloud environments and continue to spend their resources on it

The government's steps towards bringing transparency in governance through Aadhaar have resulted in an increase in IT security spending by Indian organisations, says a report by French group Thales released on Tuesday, which caters to both the defence and civil sectors.

A striking 93 per cent of Indian respondents plan on increasing IT security spending this year, the highest among all countries surveyed and well above the global average of 78 per cent, according to the India edition of the "2018 Thales Data Threat Report".

According to the report, digital transformation across the globe has led to the growth of new business models that are focused on driving growth and profitability for organisations including Cloud, Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data and Blockchain.

Indians recognise encryption with Bring Your Own Key (BYOK) capabilities as the top security tool for securing sensitive data in Cloud environments and continue to spend their resources on the same technology, the findings showed.

Around 52 per cent of Indian respondents reported a data breach last year, way above the global average of 36 per cent, the study showed.

"This year's India Data Threat Report 2018 emphasises the need for change in security strategies to prevent the continuous increase in data breaches and also highlights privacy and data protection practices," said Emmanuel de Roquefeuil, VP and Country Director, Thales in India.

The findings are based on inputs from 1,200 IT security managers in eight countries, including India, and across four major vertical markets.

Present in India since 1953, Thales has offices in several cities including in New Delhi, Gurugram, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Chennai and Mumbai.