Unprotected servers behind big data breaches: Report

As the government is trying to make stringent laws for cybersecurity, more than 3,13,000 cybersecurity incidents were reported in the country in 2019.

According to an analysis by The Economic Times, some of the biggest data breaches at Indian companies last year were mainly done by unprotected servers that imposed significant fines on the enterprise.

"While many believe that the most fateful consequence of a data breach is financial loss, the after-effects go beyond revenue impact,” said Mini Gupta, partner — cybersecurity, EY told ET.

She further added, “A data breach can put the customer trust at risk. Such breaches may also impose legal liabilities and penalties upon the affected organisation along with the loss of intellectual property,”

Last year, India ranked 15th in terms of ‘total cost of breach’, as mentioned in the 2019 Cost of a Data Breach Report. Big companies like Whatsapp, Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant, Aadhaar, SBI, Airtel have fallen prey to cyber hacking incidents.

A CIO survey found that 69 per cent of Indian organisations are at risk of data breaches. Data breaches cost Indian organisations an average of around Rs 12.8 crore, from July 2018 to April 2019, as per an IBM report. India ranked 15th in terms of ‘total cost of breach’, as mentioned in the 2019 Cost of a Data Breach Report.

Considering the incidents to be unprecedented, the privacy experts demand stricter laws regarding online surveillance. With the onset of such cyberattacks, they predict that the hacking business could boost considerably this year. Thus, the government introduced Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019 which seeks to empower the government to ask companies like Facebook, Google and others for anonymised personal and non-personal data, especially when national security is involved. There is also a provision for obtaining non-personal data without consent, for government services and policy formulation.