HYDERABAD: Guess, what worries Indian enterprises more? It is not threat from terrorism and natural disasters, but cyber attacks from the omnipresent virus, worms and trojans on the cyber space.
 
Some 42 per cent of the enterprises rate cyber security as their top concern, not surprising, as a whopping 66 per cent of the enterprises have experienced cyber attacks in the past 12 months. The attacks have, on an average, made the enterprises poorer by around Rs 60 lakh apart from bigger financial losses due to loss of confidential data and productivity.
 
Understaffing, new IT initiatives that intensify security issues and IT compliance issues complicating enterprise security figure among the concerns of organisations.
 
These and other conclusions form part of the study ‘Symantec 2010 Enterprise Security Report’ conducted by Symantec Corporation, a global leader in providing security, storage and systems management solutions.
 
“Putting in place a security blueprint protects their infrastructure and information enforces IT policies and manages systems more efficiently, businesses can increase their competitive edge in today’s information-driven world. The survey is meant to increase the awareness of security threat posed,” said Vishal Dhupar, Managing Director, Symantec India, here in the city on Tuesday.
 
The survey had a range of organisations from telecom, hospitality, manufacturing, retail and technology sectors.
 
The survey also found that 58 per cent of the enterprises were concerned about the loss of confidential/proprietary data, Mr Dhupar said, sharing details of the report, but a significant 92 per cent of them said their IT security budgets would stay the same or increase in 2010.
 
“Contrary to normal perceptions, the threat also emanates from internal sources accounting for 23 per cent of the attacks. Some 34 per cent of the attacks are of malicious nature and 31 per cent arise from unintentional internal actions,” Mr Dhupar said, quoting the report.
 
The survey had 40 to 45 per cent of the companies with a headcount of 100 to 150 employees and another 40 to 45 per cent of them with 500 to 900 persons.
 
The IDC report pegs the IT industry at $20 billion, software market at $2.2 billion and the IT security software market at 100 million.The IT security industry was expected to grow at 10 to 40 per cent, Mr Dhupar said.