IT security challenges rise with shift to remote work: Microsoft

Nearly 62 per cent of business leaders in India believe that security challenges have changed as the shift to remote work due to COVID-19 pandemic fundamentally changes security architecture, according to Microsoft which recently surveyed 800 people across markets in India, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Nearly 62 percent of business leaders in India believe that security challenges have changed as the shift to remote work due to the COVID-19 pandemic fundamentally changes security architecture, according to Microsoft which recently surveyed 800 people across markets in India, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States. About 47 percent of leaders in India said that upskilling the workforce on new solutions and troubleshooting has emerged as the biggest challenge faced by their organization's security team.

And 43 percent of them said they are prioritizing investments in cloud security through the calendar year. Investments towards data and information security are another important area with 37 percent voting for it as a priority. The pandemic also had direct implications on cybersecurity budgets and staffing with 33 percent business leaders in India reporting a 25 percent budget increase for security and more than half (54 percent) stating that they will hire additional security professionals in their security team.

A vast majority (70 percent) of them said they plan to speed up deployment of zero trust capabilities to reduce risk exposure. On a global level, highlight survey findings, 90 percent of businesses have been impacted by phishing attacks with 28 percent of respondents admitted to being successfully phished.

Notably, successful phishing attacks were reported in significantly higher numbers from organizations that described their resources as mostly on-premise (36 percent) as opposed to being more cloud-based. In response to COVID-19, more than 80 percent of companies added security jobs. About 58 percent of companies reported an increase in security budgets and 65 percent reported an increase in compliance budgets.

Nearly 40 percent of businesses said they are prioritizing investments in cloud security followed by data and information security (28 percent), and anti-phishing tools (26 percent). The shift to remote work is fundamentally changing security architecture by focusing on identities over perimeter security via zero trust strategies. About 51 percent of business leaders are speeding up the deployment of zero trust capabilities and 94 percent of companies report that they are in the process of deploying new zero trust capabilities.