Mr. Anil Gupta AVP, India sales, eScan

Q. What are the major security threats for the year 2016 and which product of eScan can reduce the risk?

Presently, globally Ransomware is creating havoc across developed nations like US, Russia and Japan to emerging countries. To rank them, it is pertinent to say “The developed nations top the rank, followed with emerging countries due to financial viability”. India ranks ninth globally, after countries like the US, Japan, Canada and Russia, in terms of ransomware attacks India is the third highest Asian country to receive ransomware attacks.

Ransomware is a Trojan horse of data destruction. It’s a vicious type of malware that creeps into your computer system and literally paralyzes it, locking up your files, videos, business documents – everything on the hard drive, really – and then demands a monetary ransom to access to unlock it. It’s a serious type of cyber extortion. They can target any PC users, whether it’s a home computer, endpoints in an enterprise network, or servers. Crypto, locky are some of the known ransomware seen at present.

eScan being one of the leading IT security solution provider has a range of solutions to provide security to various kind of networked IT environments to stand alone system .We provide Mail Security,Mail Filter as a powerful and futuristic Anti-Spam and Content Security Solution. It offers advanced Spam and Phishing Control, Web Access Management, Attachment Control, Content Security, therefore allows you to keep your data protected, your server running smoothly and your inbox free from junk mail, USB Vaccinations ,eScan plays role of a ‘vaccine’ that is provided for removable USB devices. It prevents your USB devices from becoming a source of infection.Smart Web-Filters which work in unison to protect the systems from known and unknown threats, Internet Security Blocks Dangerous Websites to Protects against viruses by identifying and blocking dangerous links on websites and in social networks and emails. It guards against Identity Theft and detects spam emails containing phishing scams that can trick you into revealing personal information.

Q. Do you think the software Industry in India is matured enough to handle these security threats?

Yes, today India is poised to take on cyber criminals and cyber threats as robust and state of the at security solutions are unavailable having said that there is still lot to be done in terms of law and legal process of victims to get right judgment and decision quickly.

Last year brought a marked increase in the frequency of cyber attacks on Indian assets, with government and private infrastructure equally affected, with 126 percent spike in attacks targeting financial services organizations.

India still lacks robust national security architecture that can respond to cyber threats in real time. India currently has a top layer of agencies performing cyber operations such as the National Technical Research Organization (NTRO), the National Intelligence Grid (NIG), and the National Information Board (NIB). There is also an additional layer of ministries performing governance functions. The civilian institutions in the country also have their own firefighting agencies to counter cyber attacks. However, considering the complex cyber security landscape in the country, there is a lot more to add in the current security architecture.

Considering the fact that humans are the weakest link in the security infrastructure, emphasis should be given on cyber security awareness. A fully operational cyber security policy is the need of the hour;

Therefore, the government should consider building its strong cyber capabilities to tackle cross country attacks or cyber espionage.

“Our strong R&D team has helped continuously developed and strengthen our flagship brand eScan Anti-Virus as one of the robust security solutions for SOHO and enterprise uses.”

Q. Kindly advice some security tips specially for the start-up companies?

Every business has information that should not be distributed, whether that’s credit card information, medical records, or just employee data. As a new business, your reputation is always on the line for cyber attacks and security breaches. Let us address some of the most effective ways to protect your business from hackers and other sources of data leaks.

• Identify risks related to cyber security
• Establish cyber security governance
• Develop policies, procedures, and oversight processes
• Protect company networks and information
• Identify and address risks associated with remote access to client information and funds transfer requests
• To focus on protecting their IP/customer data actively to win customer trust and as well protect their business secrets.
• Define and handle risks associated with vendors and other third parties
• Be able to detect unauthorized activity.

Furthermore, while enterprises struggle to protect themselves from external threats, they also need to be cognizant of internal threats. Contrary to what one might think,cyber attacks are also largely initiated by internal sources that create vulnerabilities in the network that put the company at risk.

Although there is little that enterprises can do to control when the next breach occurs, they can implement best practices, which can mitigate some of the risks.

Q. What are the Security distractions for eCommerce websites?

There are many threats to e-commerce websites, as they provide fertile ground due to financial transactions which involves credit card, debit card, banking details of customers. Hence eScan websites are more vulnerable than others.

The biggest and most current threats to e-commerce, divided into 2 categories: Deliberate acts and human error.

Deliberate acts are:

• Fraud-E-commerce websites are vulnerable to fraud from external and internal sources. These incidents include credit card fraud, anything being entered into the system by rogue employees, hackers, Trojan horses, etc.
• Security- These issues relate to internal business networks and interface between transactions done by the customer and the network. Hackers can gain access to internal systems via their e-commerce website.
• Viruses- Malicious software and computer viruses are two of the biggest threats. Viruses are normally from external sources and can corrupt files on website if introduced into the internal network. Viruses can completely destroy a computer system and disrupt the operations of the website. Trojan Horse is a malicious software that has the ability to capture the clients information, before any encryption software can take effect. They can also impersonate a customer and pass over bad and malicious codes into the server running the website.

Human errors are:

• Poor management- One of the greatest threats to an e-commerce is poor management. When the management is not committed to ensuring security and does not support budgets for purchase of anti-virus software licenses, that keep internal networks robust will cause pose a big security threat. The lack of proper an anti-virus, makes the e-commerce vulnerable to viral attacks. Management should commit to regular IT security audits of the e-commerce website to ensure that security is optimized and all potential problems are dealt with as soon as they occur.
• Untrained employees- When employees are not trained properly to use their company’s website they can make very easy but costly mistakes. Accidently putting in a customer’s information in the system wrong, clicking on something that contains a virus they are unaware of, or not keeping their systems up to date are just some accidental errors untrained employees can do which can compromise the system.

Big companies that have been the victims of big security breaches over the last year. In the case of some of the reported global eScan solution were breached and millions of customers data stolen.

Q. What is your Channel Strategy for the year ahead?

Our strong R&D team has helped continuously developed and strengthen our flagship brand eScan Anti-Virus as one of the robust security solutions for SOHO and enterprise uses.

As our strategic move for 2016-17, we have multi-pronged approach with focus on both Enterprise as well as Channel segments to increase our market share across the SMB / SOHO space. Keeping the pace with increased demand for security with emerging digital India and smart city projects, we have now expanded our ground presence with 100% increase in skilled manpower for sales and support. This is to facilitate our channel partners to garner more business form this opportunity. Apart from this, our enterprise teams have been strengthened with focused approach to support our SI partners with technical and sales support.

As India with its growth story will embrace the technological evolution, security becomes the corner stone with emerging trends of payment wallets to online banking to shopping and government services. This will open up a large business opportunity for our channel partners as well as the adoption of security by enterprise segment will help increase the SI partner revenues. We strongly support our partners in this growth opportunity and help them hone their technical and sales skills by training and joint marketing activities.

Our channel strategy today has helped us to reach out to every corner of India with a trusted and robust product brand eScan Anti-Virus and also helped our partners increase their revenue growth.

Today we have more than 5000 and above active partners selling our SOHO and SMB range of solution making us one of the first digital India brand among IT security products for its technical capabilities.

We have been doing continuously channel promotional activity to reward and motivate our partners with various rewards and promotional programs.