According to the latest Internet Security Threat Report (ISRT) volume 19 from Symantec, over 69% of targeted attacks in India focus on large enterprise. Globally there was a 62% rise in the count of data breaches from 2012 resulting in more than 552 million identities exposed proving cybercrime remains a real and damaging threat to consumers and businesses.
“One mega breach can be worth 50 smaller attacks. While the level of sophistication continues to grow among attackers, what was surprising last year was their willingness to be a lot more patient – waiting to strike until the reward is bigger and better,” said Tarun Kaura, Director -Technology Sales, Symantec India.
The size and scope of breaches is exploding, putting the trust and reputation of businesses at risk and increasingly compromising consumers’ personal information from credit card numbers and medical records to passwords and bank account details.
Each of the eight top data breaches in 2013 resulted in the loss of tens of millions of data records, while 2012 had a single data breach.
Globally, targeted attacks were up 91% and it lasted on an average three times longer compared to 2012. In India, cyber criminals are unrelenting in their focus on large enterprises with a staggering 69% targeted attacks carried out against them. Despite stepping up their information security measures, business in India continue to be an attractive target for cyber criminals.
C-level and support staffs are the target attacks
Within organizations, support functions with access to critical data emerged as the strongest target for attackers globally. Personal assistants and those working in public relations were the two most targeted professions – cyber criminals use them as a stepping stone towards higher profile targets like celebrities or business executives.
Indian SMBs at the helm of cyberattacks
Small and medium sized businesses often have less adequate security practices and resources. Attackers are increasingly targeting smaller businesses that have a relationship with a larger company. Not surprisingly, in India, small businesses received the highest number of phishing and virus-bearing emails –almost three times as much as the large targets.
Newer industries are easy targets for cyber criminals
In India, nearly four in 10 attacks were carried out on non-traditional services industries, like hospitality, business and personal services. This was followed by attacks on manufacturing, finance and insurance.
India emerged as a key threat frontier, ranking as the third highest source of overall malicious activity. It continued to hold its position as the spam capital of the world with 9.8 % of spam zombies; along with highest source of botnet spam close to 1.45 billion spams or 6.6% originationg from its borders everyday.
India also ranked high in the number of top botnets like Cutwail, Kelihos, GRUM, and GHEG. Cutwail which is the spam sending botnet for the malware Pandex sends 8.06 billion spam messages every day, out of which the highest are sent from India (over 620 million), according to the report.
