IT giant Wipro has now released its annual State of Cybersecurity Report (SOCR). Currently, in its fourth year, this report presents the changing global perspectives of cybersecurity. This year’s report details a cybersecurity perspective, especially from a COVID-19 perspective. 

It has been prepared over four months of research and survey, in collaboration with 194 participating organisations and 21 academic institutions from over 35 countries. The derivatives have been arrived upon by rigorously analysing 1.1 million intelligence alerts, over 6,500 incidents, 225 malware threats, and 30 security products.

Salient Features Of SOCR 2020

The report details on how artificial intelligence can be leveraged as a defensive tactic at a time when organisations are increasingly facing a threat from advanced and resilient cyberattacks. SOCR 2020 also reports growing cyber resilience at the time when most organisations have opted for temporary or permanent work from home arrangement while giving workable solutions for organisations to work around this new ‘normal’.

Notably, there has been a steady increase in cybersecurity-related research, with 49% of the total patients in the field being filed in just the last four years. Moreover, organisations too, are expanding their cognitive detection capabilities to tackle security threats and attacks. 

Speaking in the context of the report, Wipro Limited President and Chief Operating Officer, Bhanumurthy BM, said, “Security is ever-changing, and the report brings more focus, enablement, and accountability on executive management to stay updated. Our research not only focuses on what happened during the pandemic but also provides foresight toward future cyber strategies in a post-COVID world.”

Some of the report’s significant observations are:

• Macro trends in cybersecurity globally showed that 86% of all nation-state attacks fell in espionage category of which 46% were targeted at private companies

• With work from the arrangement, 70% of organisations found it difficult to maintain ‘endpoint cyber hygiene’, and 57% found difficulty in dealing with VPN and VDI risks. Additionally, 87% of organisations said that they were keen on implementing zero trust architecture and secure cloud migration.

• Up to 59% of organisations said that they understood their cyber risks and 14% have a security budget of more than 12% of overall IT budget

• With 7% of the patents filed in 5G security, it was observed as an emerging area for R&D.

The complete report can be accessed here.