Most Indian firms to increase cybersecurity budget in 2022: PwC survey

A majority of Indian organisations (80 per cent) are likely to increase their cybersecurity budget in 2022, according to a survey by global consultancy firm PwC.

As per the PwC's 2022 Digital Trust Insights Survey, the risk landscape is continuously evolving and organisations are investing more than ever in cybersecurity to manage their risks.

As the business environment turns more complex due to the interconnectedness of systems and information, the impact of a risk event is not limited but rather has a domino effect with high consequences, it said.

Organisations are therefore gearing up to implement robust cybersecurity practices and controls to manage these risks.

"...82 per cent of the Indian respondents have predicted an increase in their cybersecurity budget in 2022. Moreover, 41 per cent of organisations in India predict double-digit growth in their cyber budgets in 2022, as against 26 per cent organisations globally," the survey said.

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The 2022 Global Digital Trust Insights is a survey of 3,602 business, technology, and security executives (CEOs, corporate directors, CFOs, CISOs, CIOs, and C-Suite officers) based in various regions. The India edition of the global survey report focuses on the responses of the executives of 109 Indian businesses.

The survey further said organisations have invested in a multitude of cybersecurity tools and technologies to manage their cyber risks.

However, these technologies are not utilised to their maximum potential for making intelligent and informed cyber risk management decisions, it added.

It also showed that four out of 10 organisations have either initiated the implementation or are planning to invest in cybersecurity by focusing on areas such as customer identity and access management, zero trust architecture, managed security services, cloud security and endpoint security.

However, as per the survey, to date, only 25 per cent of respondents in India have realised the benefits of their cyber investments.

Sivarama Krishnan, APAC and India Cyber Security and Privacy Leader, PwC said that with rising digitisation, businesses have been compelled to rethink and reconfigure their cybersecurity objectives, which have become more complex.

"The processes needed to manage and maintain the guardrails around services and information have become complicated and in some instances, challenging," Krishnan added.

The survey also highlighted that 40 per cent of the Indian respondents have implemented formal and mature data trust practices including data governance, discovery, protection and minimisation within their organisations.

PwC said that in the digital age, organisations with the highest level of digital trust have become the consumer's first choice.

However, with an ever-increasing focus on digitisation and the utilisation of enormous amounts of data, organisations have become heavily reliant on complex, deeply rooted and interdependent technologies, it added. 

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