A report said “India is fast becoming a “strategic target” for cyber-criminals with an estimated 38 per cent of organisations exposed to targeted attacks in the first half of 2015.”

This report is given by Security solutions firm FireEye’s ‘1H 2015 Regional Advanced Threat Report. This report surveyed whole Asian countries and said that 38 percent of organisations in India were exposed to targeted advanced persistent attacks in the first half of the year, a 23 percent increase from the previous year.

This report said “India is fast becoming a strategic target, in part because of the potentially sensitive information that is expected to be digitised through ambitious and high-profile projects such as Digital India.” The report says that ranks India fourth in Asia-Pacific countries exhibiting the most command-and-control (CnC) infection callbacks. This indicates the presence of compromised systems that are actively communicating with the advanced persistent threat (APT) groups’ command-and-control infrastructure.

FireEye Chief Technology Officer (APAC) Bryce Boland says that

• As India embarks on ambitious technology projects, attackers are exploiting gaps to compromise critical networks. Indian organisations are more likely to be exposed to attacks than the global average
• In the future, Indias growing economic clout and rising regional influence are likely to make it a more attractive target to threat groups
• These threat groups seek access to intellectual property, intelligence and critical infrastructure
• Indian organisations should ensure existing security tools are up to date and should implement an adaptive defence security model that can help shorten the time it takes between finding a breach and stopping it.

This Report also speaks about following points

• Two attacks likely conducted by China-based threat actors on Indian organisations.
• The ‘WATERMAIN’ campaign targeted India and its neighbouring countries and appeared to target information about ongoing border disputes and other diplomatic matters
• Geopolitical tensions in the region have steadily ratcheted up in recent months, and cyber activity reflects this. Organisations in every geography in APAC, including India, experienced a higher or equal rate to APT groups than the global average of 20 percent

The report found over 50 percent of telecommunications firms and government organisations have faced APT, with education and the high-tech industry not far behind across the APAC region.