The dawn of the 20th century, as countries transitioned from industrial manufacturing to production based on information, saw the birth of the information age. The evolution of information technology got accelerated with the emergence of modern-day computers in the latter half of the 20th century and finally culminated with the advent of the internet as the turn of the century. The internet enabled transmission of information at a rapid pace from one corner of the world to another.
Today, a large mass of the human population is hooked to the internet. Those with access to internet almost continuously online: uploading or downloading stuff, transacting or trading on variousplatforms, scrolling through social media feeds, watching or reading news reports, and streaming visual content. In the process, huge amounts of data are being generated on a daily basis, with majority of the people having some form of a digital footprint on the internet. While our lives have certainly gotten easier because of the internet, the flip side to this is that we have also gotten more exposed and susceptible to criminal activities.
The dangers posed by digital crimes have given rise to a concept known as “cyber security” and to a thriving market along with it. According to Fortune Business Insights™, the global cyber security market size stood at USD 139.77 billion in 2021 and is expected to reach USD 376.32 billion by 2029, surging at a CAGR of 13.4%. Given the massive size and wide scope of this technology, it would be worth looking into some of the most recent developments in the field. But before we delve into them, let us first try to understand why the need for cyber security has aggravated in the past few years.
Coronavirus and the Unprecedented Spike in Cyber Attacks
While the world is battling the COVID-19 pandemic, hackers are busy infiltrating and extracting critical data. In April 2020, for example, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported that 450 of its active emails and passwords were leaked online along with numerous others associated with the coronavirus. In India, according to K7 Computing, a cyber-security company, COVID-related cyber-attacks spiked by 260% across the country in the form of fake Android apps and phishing emails. As the pandemic has forced social distancing worldwide, work from home has suddenly become the norm across most organizations. Unfortunately, the home-office environment also suffers from heightened vulnerability to cyber-attacks. For example, companies extensively utilize virtual private networks (VPNs) to ensure data security.
KPMG Offers Enhanced Cyber Defense Capabilities to Organizations
KPMG International released an advanced cyber security offering for enterprises in February 2020. Leveraging the capabilities of Microsoft Azure Sentinel, the innovative solution is devised to improve security monitoring and incidence response among businesses. KPMG has designed the cyber defense offering by combining Azure’s superior cyber security capacity with KPMG’s own industry experience to deliver customized security ecosystems to organizations according to their needs. With the launch of this solution, KPMG aims at deepening ties with Microsoft and expand their collaboration in the related fields of cloud security and data governance.
