Indian enterprise to bank on Zero Trust, Cloud and Remote Work for digital resiliency: Study

With the new normal of work culture setting in employees are trying and testing new modes and technologies for the most optimised outcome.

According to a study by cyber security solutions provider, A10 Networks, of the 250 enterprise organisations surveyed in India, nearly all (97%) showed high levels of concern around all aspects of enterprise digital resilience. Overall levels of concern were highest around optimisation of security tools to ensure competitive advantage and delivering superior user experience with customers accessing their ecosystem both easily and securely.

Also, 81 per cent of Indian enterprise organisations said that they would be cloud based with private cloud being their preferred environment. However, they are not reassured by their cloud service providers, with more than half (51%) saying that they are failing to meet their service level agreement.

The study showed that private cloud is the preferred environment. The rising network traffic has added to the challenges respondents face with 93% of Indian enterprise organisations witnessing network traffic increase in the last 12 months, which is higher as compared to the survey average of 86%.

On the escalating cyber threat front, it is causing a broad spread of concerns from Indian respondents. Compared to other regions, Indian respondents were more concerned about the loss of sensitive data and assets should they suffer a data breach due to a cyber attack. Other concerns included financial loss leading to revenue loss, and potential downtime or a lockdown should they experience a DDoS attack.

In response to these concerns, the research showed an evident shift to Zero Trust security approaches with 26% of Indian enterprise organisations saying they have already adopted a Zero Trust model in the last 12 months and 8% intending to adopt one in the next 12 months.

“The world has changed irrevocably and the pace of digital transformation has accelerated beyond expectations. But as we move beyond crisis mode, organisations are now laser-focused on digital resilience, moving to the cloud,” said Sanjai Gangadharan, Area Vice President – South ASEAN at A10 Networks.

“Enterprises across the world are witnessing increasing state-sponsored cyber threats and digital aggression as a result of geopolitical tensions. The primary target of these offensives are typically enterprises holding sensitive assets and strong government ties, as well as government organisations themselves. Thus, we expect adoption of cybersecurity initiatives to be higher,” he said.

The study further mentioned that the new normal may resemble the old normal. While there has been an infrastructure shift to support distributed home and remote work, 82% of Indian enterprise organisations said that all or most employees will work in offices over the long term. Only 6% say that a minority or no employees will work from the office and the majority will be remote. This runs contrary to the predictions of a seismic shift to a permanently hybrid enterprise with application and network professionals expecting the old normal to reassert itself.

In terms of investment priorities, the study showed that artificial intelligence and machine learning have undoubtedly come of age, with 47% of Indian enterprise organisations saying they have deployed these technologies in the last 12 months. Additionally 34% say they have deployed IoT devices to help business functions.