Indian IT leaders confident of cyber resilience despite failures: Study

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Most IT leaders are confident about their cybersecurity resilience measures, even though a significant number of Indian organisations have experienced cybersecurity failures in the past 12 months, a study has found, showing a disconnect between perception and reality.

According to a study by cloud security firm Zscaler, 67 per cent of Indian organisations experienced a cybersecurity failure in the past 12 months. However, a surprising 97 per cent of Indian IT leaders believe their current cyber resilience measures are effective.

Further, the study revealed a critical gap: while confidence is high, actual preparedness for modern cyberattacks, especially those leveraging Artificial Intelligence (AI), is lagging.

The report indicates that although 57 per cent of Indian IT leaders acknowledge cyber resilience as a top priority for their leadership, this recognition isn't translating into adequate funding or proactive strategies.

This lack of tangible support is further compounded by the fact that 70 per cent of Indian organisations do not involve Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) in resilience planning, fostering a siloed approach that hinders effective cyber security execution, the report said.

"The possibility of a major failure scenario for organisations is not an 'if' but 'when', as the statistics in our report show. It proves the need for proactive resilience to combat and mitigate inevitable incidents before they become a significant issue for business continuity.

"Leadership must collaborate with IT teams to develop a strong cyber resilience strategy based on Zero Trust, preparing for and mitigating the impact of sophisticated AI-driven attacks. We call this becoming 'Resilient by Design'" said Jay Chaudhry, CEO, Chairman and Founder, Zscaler.

Zscaler surveyed 1,700 IT decision-makers across 12 markets (Australia, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, UK & Ireland, US) in December 2024.

To mitigate risks, organisations should embed visibility and control into their security strategy, Zscaler suggested.

"Understanding failure scenarios more quickly and thoroughly based on the insights from an AI-powered cloud security platform to mitigate the blast radius of an incident strengthens the resilience posture," the report said.