India sufferred second-highest data breaches in 2022 with 450 million records exposed: Report

Budget 2023 | India allocates over Rs 600 crore to improve cybersecurity infra

In India, most of the record breaches were a result of ransomware attacks and unsecured databases. The analysis found that 33 percent of all breaches were caused by ransomware attacks while a concerning 17 percent were because of unsecured databases. The most targeted sectors in India were the healthcare and retail sectors, accounting for 11 percent of all breaches each.

The other targeted sectors in the country were financial services (6 percent), education (6 percent), professional and technical services (6 percent), and public administration (6 percent).

The research report also found that a large number of security breaches happened due to old existing vulnerabilities and flaws. Some of these flaws dated back to 2017 but organisations had failed to apply the relevant security patches for these flaws, leading to a heightened risk of breaches.

"Threat actors continue to find success with known and proven exploitable vulnerabilities that organisations have failed to patch or remediate successfully," said Satnam Narang, senior staff research engineer at Tenable.

“Unpatched vulnerabilities provide attackers with the most cost-effective and straightforward way to gain the initial access into or elevate privileges within organisations,” he added.