‘Indian SMEs Need Agile Security Layer to Tackle Evolving Digital Security Threats’

Organizations in India are increasingly realizing the importance of security. With the recent overload of data, it is very important to ensure access to the right people. Data should be easy to manage and access, but at the same time it is important to ensure that the data does not fall in the wrong hands.

In conversation with Faiz Askari of SMEStreet, Ripu Bajwa, Country Manager, Data Protection Solutions, Dell EMC India explained latest trends in the enterprise technology space and specifically digital security.

Faiz Askari: What are the key trends you are witnessing in the digital security space?

Ripu Bajwa: A new trend that has emerged among various enterprises, both Indian and global, has been the focus on outsourcing the data recovery needs to a third-party provider in a cloud model, instead of setting up one’s own data centres.

Building an effective and agile information security program is a necessity for organizations to prevent threats such as ransomware attacks. Creating a backup of the data to prevent any kind of cyber-attack or accidental damage along with understanding the cloud service provider security model are some of the key trends in the information security landscape.

Faiz Askari:  What are the key threats that are influencing the decision makers to adopt better and enhanced security measures for their IT environment?

Ripu Bajwa: The internet consumption in India has increased manifold, from 238 million last year to 360 million in the current year. Dell EMC Data Protection Index 2016 states that 39% of the Indian firms surveyed have experienced data loss resulting in losses worth over $1 million.

Indian enterprises have been gaining a lot of exposure and attention globally but these firms are at an increased risk emerging from various cyber threats due to old and vulnerable security solutions at work.

Also, security becomes a primary concern for IoT devices with looming threats like data breach and cyber-attacks.

Faiz Askari: What are the key priorities of todays' SMEs with regards to privacy and security?

Ripu Bajwa: SME’s today have been growing digitally, largely in terms of data consumption and storage. Hence it becomes necessary for them to keep their privacy and data security in check. Organizations have improved a lot when it comes to protecting themselves against the traditional threats to data, however introduction of new threats mean that despite progress, businesses are experiencing loss of data more than ever.

The key priorities for SME’s should be to ensure they evolve digitally and store and manage data securely. Identifying the current threats is important to ensure protection against cyber-attacks and loss of data.

Faiz Askari: Please unleash your flagship services/products offerings for the SME segment when it comes to the Data Protection portfolio?

Ripu Bajwa: SMEs are very important when it comes to Dell EMCs business perspectives as the main objective is to help them grow by transforming them digitally. Hence, Dell EMC provides a wavelength of data protection as well as security solutions for SMBs which range from Integrated Data Protection Solutions to Disaster Recovery Solutions listed beow.

• Integrated Data Protection Appliance (IDPA) is something we recently launched. IDPA is a purpose-built, pre-integrated and turnkey appliance that converges protection storage, software, search and analytics in a single appliance. It provides data protection across a wide ecosystem of applications and platforms, and offers native cloud-tiering for long-term retention. In short, IDPA is a holistic approach to data protection which enables customers to greatly simplify and lower their cost of overall data protection environment.
• Isolated Recovery Solution provides complete protection against attacks and safeguards the data. This creates isolated/backup copies of the data & stores it in an environment which is totally detached from the primary data storage network. This helps organizations to be well prepared in the case of a cyber-attack.
• Disaster Recovery Solution (DR) is another solution which Dell EMC provides to protect the precious data of any organization in case of a cyber-attack. DR consists of a set of policies and procedures which helps in the recovery of important technology infrastructure and systems following a natural or human-induced disaster.

Faiz Askari: What are the best practices that Indian CIOs and CISOs need to adopt?

Ripu Bajwa: CIOs should take essential steps to ensure that they safeguard their data by facilitating exchange of valuable information because cyber criminals look to maximize their profit through various mobile malwares as mobile devices are prone to cyber threats. In order to protect their business from data losses, Indian CIO's and CISOs need to adopt certain practices. CIOs and CISOs must look for more holistic, security-by-design solutions. Businesses can also leverage advanced data protection solutions and separate copies of their data from the network. Deploying adequate security solutions along with encryption of sensitive data is among the other best practices that an Indian CIO/CISO need to implement in order to ensure data protection.

Faiz Askari: What are the challenges in the data protection that Indian businesses are dealing with?

Ripu Bajwa: Indian businesses face a shortage of resources who expertise in cyber security skills which exposes these businesses into risk. Due to emerging new threats, data loss there is now an increased concern around security of data.

Indian businesses are majorly affected by various cyber-attacks and henceforth organizations have deployed several security solutions to give them protection from traditional threats. Indian organizations face a problem of external or internal security breach which in turn results in huge data loss.

Another challenge that Indian businesses face that is that most enterprises have their IT environment in the public cloud but they believe their data isn’t safe. Another major obstacle which lies in the path of Indian businesses is that the lack of confidence to fully recover their systems or data in the event of data loss.

Faiz Askari: How does Dell EMC's Isolated Recovery Solutions stand in the competitive market place?

Ripu Bajwa: In the age of cyber-attacks it is important to fortify your data against various external threats. Dell EMCs Isolated Recovery Solutions is one of a kind data protection solutions. These solutions provide complete protection against attacks by safeguarding the data.

Isolated Recovery Solutions first establish an isolated environment that is disconnected from the network with software that create data copies and procedures to perform scheduled air gaps.

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