CONNECTIVITY CLOUD AS A SECURE PLATFORM: Small businesses look for a safer cloud

As cloud becomes critical for Indian small and medium businesses (SMBs), so does the complexity and cost of running it. IT teams have to navigate challenges like application performance, infrastructure scaling, security, data sovereignty, and managing costs. However, the biggest fear is cyberattacks.

Several studies have pointed out that SMBs are never too small to fall victim to cyberattacks. A report by CyberPeace Foundation highlights that 43% of cyberattacks target SMBs and startups. Moreover, nearly 46% of SMBs had no clue about how to manage cyber risks. About 60% of such small enterprises that become victims of cybercrime go out of business within six months.

“With the expanding digital footprint, SMBs today face an urgent need to fortify their cybersecurity defenses. India’s nearly 63 million MSMEs grapple with security challenges while embracing the cloud for its scalability and cost-efficiency. Limited resources and a shortage of required skill-sets make small businesses vulnerable to rising threats,” said Samir Kumar Mishra, director, Security Business, Cisco India & SAARC.

A cloud network

A connectivity cloud is a new approach for delivering the many services companies need to secure and connect their digital environment. It’s a unified, intelligent, platform of programmable cloud-native services that enable any-to-any connectivity between all networks (enterprise and Internet), cloud environments, applications and users.

According to Mitesh Jain, country manager, Akamai Technologies, India and SAARC, increasing security attacks, whether cloud-based or on premises, mean you need to build security into everything you create — anywhere you build it and everywhere you deliver it.

“We launched Akamai Connected Cloud earlier this year, a massively distributed edge and cloud platform for computing, security, and CDN (content delivery network) that keeps applications and experiences closer, and threats away. It enables businesses to control cloud costs in a challenging economic environment, meet fast-changing cloud location requirements, and increase business innovation capabilities by building and deploying apps and workloads closer to end users,” he said.

Cybersecurity firm Cloudflare has an offering in this regard. “Our Connectivity Cloud is a unified platform of cloud-native services designed to help enterprises regain control over their increasingly complex and sprawling technology and data,” said Matthew Prince, the CEO at this connectivity cloud firm.

New data from Forrester shows businesses’ need for more connectivity for anything online, whether it’s a cloud, a device, a database, or on-premises hardware. “A connectivity cloud can help with digital transformation, while decreasing risk and increasing productivity. As much as 96% of organisations believe that they would gain value from this cloud,” says Prince.

Most-targeted lot

Recent findings from Sophos State of Ransomware Report 2023 show that 73% of organisations fell victim to ransomware in 2023, a rise from 57% in the previous year. “Since startups and SMBs are highly data-driven, attackers look at them as prime targets,” says Sunil Sharma, vice-president – Sales, India and SAARC, Sophos. “This is why ransomware attacks have become so prevalent because even if they don’t get a pay out, they gain valuable data. This can destroy not only their business but even their reputation.”