India Has Become The Second Most Prone Nation To Cloud Hacking After The US
India is now the second most prone country in the world after the United States when it comes to cloud hacking and security threats. It is followed by Australia, Canada and then Brazil, which has witnessed some of the biggest cloud breaches in its history. According to a recent report, the most common technique used in cloud hacking is malware.
In recent times due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, workforces across the world have become much more flexible, and this has led cybercriminals to introduce updated and new tactics as well as threats in campaigns that target governments, the entertainment sector, financial services and many other prominent industries. As per the Advanced Threat Research Report made by McAfee Enterprise in October 2021, the government, in 2021, was the most targeted area in India. The report also mentions that there has been a 64% increase in the total number of cyber incidents that have been reported by the public in 2021.
According to the chief scientist of McAfee Enterprise, Raj Samani, ransomware has grown and evolved by leaps and bounds in recent years. Moreover, cybercriminals are now much quicker and smarter when it comes to pivoting their tactics and strategies along with an entire gamut of bad-actor schemes. He added that names like Ryuk, Darkside, Babuk and REvil had been permanently etched into the public mind, and people now link these names with the global disruption of important services.
As mentioned above, the government was the most targeted sector in India by ransomware in Q2 this year. This was followed by other sectors such as telecom, media and communications and energy. In addition to that, Spam demonstrated the most increase in publicly reported incidents from Q1 to Q2 2021 (250%), followed by 125% of Malicious Script and 47% of Malware. Financial services were also not spared when it came to the reporting of cloud incidents. According to cloud security news, this was followed by healthcare, retail, manufacturing and professional services.
The recent cloud hacks in various sectors of the country show just how vulnerable the country is when it comes to cloud hacking. In 2021, the US reported the most number of such happenings in the second quarter. Furthermore, according to the report, Europe experienced the largest increase in the total number of incidents reported in Q2 at a whopping 52%. This year’s second quarter was ripe with ransomware, and there were several high-profile cyber agendas in the US administration after the Colonial Pipeline attack. According to the report, it is also noteworthy that this year’s second quarter saw a lot of challenges when it came to difficulties in transitioning from cloud security to include a more flexible and competent pandemic workforce as well as an increased workload. This offered cybercriminals a lot more potential targets and exploits.
A lot of data breaches hit India this year, with several sectors struggling with cybersecurity and privacy issues. These incidents reveal that our government agencies and organisations need to be even more vigilant of their online activities and employ airtight security measures to prevent such events in the future.
