AI-driven Cloud Only Can Protect Indian Firms From Hackers: Microsoft

With Indian firms losing millions annually owing to cyber attacks, key leadership across industries are now in a huddle and discussions over securing data is now a critical part of boardroom settings, Keshav Dhakad, Group Head and Assistant General Counsel, Corporate, External & Legal Affairs (CELA), Microsoft India, has stressed.

A large-sized enterprise in India loses an average of USD 10.3 million owing to cyber attacks and a mid-sized organization an average of USD 11,000 annually, a Microsoft-led study said recently.

“From CEOs to CTOs, from large-sized enterprises to start-ups, securing data on-premise and in the Cloud has become paramount in India. Cyber attacks are growing in leaps and bounds and endpoint security is the key, be it on-prim or in Cloud,” Dhakad told IANS during the Microsoft’s Media and Analyst Day here.

Cyber security attacks have resulted in job losses across different functions in more than three in five (64 percent) organizations that have experienced cyber attacks, revealed the Frost and Sullivan study commissioned by Microsoft last month.

“With traditional IT boundaries disappearing, the adversaries now have many new targets to attack. Hackers are always a step ahead, waiting for new loopholes to emerge and need just one worker to click on a spam link to corrupt systems within the organization,” said Dhakad.

More than three in five organizations (62 percent) surveyed in India have either experienced a cybersecurity incident (30  percent) or are not sure if they had one as they have not performed proper forensics or data breach assessment (32 percent).

“Since start-ups are being born in the Cloud, they already have top-of-the-line security in place. For traditional enterprises, the Cloud journey has just taken off. Microsoft is ready with its state-of-the-art security solutions for both on-prem and Cloud requirements,” informed Dhakad.

According to Microsoft, nine in 10 (92 percent) Indian organizations are looking to leverage Artificial Intelligence (AI) to enhance their cyber security strategy.

“AI with Intelligent Cloud and Intelligent Edge is an answer to the companies’ need to secure their data as most of those cannot hire teams to manually do the task.

“Since human is the weakest link when it comes to hacking, AI-driven models can better do the job of keeping a real-time tab on threats coming in, and mitigating those before any damage is done,” said Dhakad.—Hindustan Times