MCAFEE, INC. REPORTS COMPANIES ON AVERAGE LOST $41K TO SECURITY BREACHES LAST YEAR

Research reveals 94 per cent of Indian companies are concerned about being a target of cybercrime

Mumbai, Oct 29, 2009 – McAfee, Inc. today released research findings that organisations (51 to 1,000 employees) are cutting their security budgets at the same time that cyber threats are escalating, according to McAfee’s report The Security Paradox. The study found that more than half of Indian companies surveyed have seen more security incidents in the past year (63%), and one in five midsize organizations around the world has had a single incident that cost an average of US$41K as loss of revenue. The study reveals that 70 per cent of the Indian companies reported spending more than a day on recovering from IT security attacks.

This paradox occurs in part because these types of companies are under the mistaken impression that hackers prefer to target larger companies. Almost half of global organisations surveyed (43 per cent) think larger organisations with 501+ employees are most at risk for a security attack. In truth, organisations with less than 500 employees actually suffer from more attacks on average.

“Companies in India are becoming increasingly aware of the threats of IT security attacks. It’s heartening to see that a significant number of organisations have increased their budgets in 2009 on IT security despite the downward pressure on finances and resources. According to our research, organisations that put more effort on preventing attacks can end up spending less than a third as much as those that allow themselves to be at risk. Hence, adopting preventive security measures should be taken as a serious concern by every organisation”, said Kartik Shahani, Regional Director for India, McAfee, Inc.

McAfee’s study found that 81 per cent of the Indian organisations surveyed spend less than four hours a week on IT security proactively and, around 70 per cent of them spend more than a day recovering from IT security attacks. Threats and responses varied greatly from country to country, but uniformly the countries where companies invested the least time on prevention—Canada and France among them—suffered the greatest financial losses and downtime from cybercrime when it happened, requiring a week or longer to recover from their most recent cyber attack.

Additional India specific results:

67 per cent of the Indian companies are very concerned about their business being a target for cyber crime
India and China have the largest amount of unreported data leaks, with 35 per cent and 32 per cent respectively
38 per cent of the Indian companies surveyed one or more incidents of data breaches in the last one year
63 per cent of Indian companies witnessed an increase in IT security incidents from 2008 to 2009
73 per cent of Indian companies fear that a serious data breach could put their organization to out of business
47 per cent Indian suffered more than 20 security incidents in the past one year
An Indian company spends an average of $28,447 per year in combating various types of IT security attacks (data loss, endpoint protection, email threats, website threats and network security threats)

McAfee’s report The Security Paradox was conducted by MSI International and looked at security spending in the last year by companies with 51-1,000 employees in India, Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States. The results were compared to previous studies conducted in Europe and North America.

The full methodology and data is available upon request. To download the The Security Paradox report, please visit www.mcafee.com/securityparadox.

About McAfee, Inc.

McAfee, Inc., headquartered in Santa Clara, California, is the world’s largest dedicated security technology company. McAfee is relentlessly committed to tackling the world’s toughest security challenges. The company delivers proactive and proven solutions and services that help secure systems and networks around the world, allowing users to safely connect to the Internet, browse and shop the web more securely. Backed by an award-winning research team, McAfee creates innovative products that empower home users, businesses, the public sector and service providers by enabling them to prove compliance with regulations, protect data, prevent disruptions, identify vulnerabilities, and continuously monitor and improve their security. http://www.mcafee.com

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