India leads the way with cloud adoption for sensitive information, where data protection is paramount.

Thales, leader in in critical information systems, cybersecurity and data security, announces the launch of the India edition of 2017 Global Encryption Trends Study. The report reveals that organizations are increasingly adopting encryption to address compliance requirements and the escalating need to protect sensitive information from both internal and external threats and accidental disclosure.
 

Key Points

• 70 percent of organisations in India transfer sensitive data to the cloud
• Mega breaches and cyber attacks have increased companies’ urgency to improve their security posture
• Top threat to sensitive data continues to be employee mistakes, followed by hackers and temporary/contract workers
• The top drivers for encryption are to protect against specific, identified threats and to protect customer information

This year’s findings also align with key trends demonstrating an increased reliance on the cloud. Seventy per cent of organisations in India transfer sensitive or confidential information to the cloud – whether encrypted or not – a rate that is highest of all the countries in the survey (global average: 53%). Organisations are increasingly adopting encryption to protect sensitive information, but with more use of encryption comes additional requirements to manage keys, something that organisations in India found more painful to manage than any other country. In addition 95% of organisations in India valued scalability for encryption solutions, which was much higher than any other country (global average 29%). 

News facts:

• Indian organizations transfer sensitive/confidential information to the cloud (whether encrypted or not) at a rate that is the highest of all countries in the survey (70%). The global average is 53%
• 82 percent of organisations in India represented in this study embrace some type of encryption strategy, demonstrating the importance of encryption and key management in achieving a strong security posture.
• The top drivers for encryption are to protect against specific, identified threats and to protect customer information. This is in contrast to the global data where compliance is, and historically always has been, the top driver for encryption.  In India, compliance ranked third on the list at 55%.
• IT operations (28 per cent of respondents) and IT security (27 per cent of respondents) have the most influence in directing encryption strategies in contrast to global data where business unit leaders have a higher influence over encryption strategy than IT operations.
• Top threat to sensitive data continues to be employee mistakes (55% of respondents), followed by hackers (36%) and temporary/contract workers (31% of respondents).
• In India, encryption deployment grew the most year-on-year in databases, big data, and email.
• Encryption of databases, Internet communications and laptop hard drives are is most likely to be extensively deployed. In contrast, public cloud services and docker containers are least likely to be extensively or partially encrypted.
• 62% of the respondents say hardware security modules (HSMs) will be important in the next 12 months.

 
The Global Encryption Trends Study, commissioned by Thales, is based on independent research conducted by the Ponemon Institute. The purpose of the report was to examine how organisations around the world are dealing with increased vulnerabilities and implementation of encryption to protect their most sensitive data. Now in its twelfth year, the survey is based on responses from more than 5,000 IT security decision makers across multiple industry sectors in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Australia, Japan, Brazil, the Russian Federation, Mexico, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates and includes responses from 548 individuals in India.

Download your copy of the new 2017 Global Encryption Trends Study – India.

«As organisations embark on their digital transformation and embrace the cloud it is imperative that their most sensitive data remains secure and protected. This study is part of a global initiative by Thales to educate leaders from the private and public sectors on the privacy and data protection practices companies can follow today.»
Emmanuel de Roquefeuil, country director India, Thales

«This study is a call to action for organisations in India to strengthen their security position with strong data security and encryption plans in order to secure sensitive data and adhere to risk and compliance best practices and regulations. Thales is a strong player in the Indian public sector banks and most private sector banks, securing their information with its Hardware Security Module (HSMs). It is estimated that over 90% of the card transactions in India are secured by Thales payment HSMs.»
James Cook, sales director South Asia, Thales e-Security