WHY INDIAN ORGANISATIONS NEED A CYBER RESILIENCE STRATEGY FOR BUSINESS CONTINUITY

Sathish Murthy is an experienced regional engineering and technology solutions leader, who brings over two decades of experience in the information and communications technology industry. He is focused on helping customers to transform their business by harnessing the power of data and protecting their data.

- 

API RESPONSE

Sathish Murthy Director of Systems Engineering Cohesity ASEAN & India

In a conversation with Charulatha, a correspondent in Siliconindia magazine, Sathish discussed ransomware trends and cybersecurity in India. AI aids data management, notably in backup and recovery for cyber incidents, ensuring swift recovery.

Tell us about the evolution of new ransomware tactics and the state of cyber security in India

In this respect, India is no different to the rest of the world, with cyberattacks like ransomware a true digital scourge. Part of the challenge that ransomware poses lies in the fact it has continued to evolve over time and has become more complex, potent, and targeted. The first iteration of ransomware, or Ransomware 1.0, was and is relatively easy for organisations to shield themselves against through backups where data could be recovered from and business processes restored. Then Ransomware 2.0 upped the ante and could foil recovery by destroying backups first and encrypting the data. More recently we’ve seen attacks emerge that could be considered Ransomware 3.0, whereby double extortion occurs after data has been encrypted or exfiltrated.

Ransomware tactics have also certainly evolved, with ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) emerging in the last few years. RaaS has in many ways not only gone a long way towards democratising ransomware by lowering the technical barriers to entry for threat actors, but has also allowed cybercrime gangs to scale their operations and revenue generation. We have seen RaaS kits such as Locky, Goliath, and Shark provided by groups like DarkSide, Hive, and REvil to allow a wider set of cybercriminals to target organisations’ vulnerabilities and technology infrastructure.