3 in 4 Indian IT executives admit ransomware attack

New Delhi: More than three in four 74 per cent of IT decision makers in India who were surveyed said their organisation has experienced a ransomware attack, a new report revealed on Tuesday. According to cloud-enabled security solutions provider Barracuda Networks, while 84 per cent of organisations are still relying solely on capabilities built in Office 365 to backup and recover Office 365 data, 89 per cent are concerned about ransomware locking their Office 365 data.

The research surveyed global IT decision makers of which 213 were from India about Microsoft Office 365 and a variety of related topics. "Amid the dramatically rapid shift to remote working set up and increasing dependence on SharePoint, OneDrive, and Teams over the past year, protecting Office 365 data has turned out to be all the more crucial requirement than ever before and more challenging," said Murali Urs, the Country Manager of Barracuda Networks (India).

Therefore, organisations are now looking for comprehensive, easy-to-use backup solutions that are fast to get up, running and include capabilities like granular retention that aren't included in Microsoft's native functionality, he added. Facing multiple hacking attempts on its business email servers worldwide, Microsoft has reiterated the warning that patching a system does not necessarily remove the access of the attacker. The key vulnerabilities in the Microsoft business email servers have left cyber security experts flummoxed as this free-for-all attack opportunity is now being exploited by vast numbers of criminal gangs and State-backed threat actors.

According to the new report, 92 per cent of IT decision makers agreed that granular restore of Microsoft Exchange, SharePoint, OneDrive, and Teams is important to them.