New McAfee Report Eestimates Global Cybercrime Losses to Exceed $1 Trillion

News Highlights:

Global losses from cybercrime now total over $1 trillion, a more than 50 percent increase from 2018

Two-thirds of surveyed companies reported some kind of cyber incident in 2019

Average interruption to operations at 18 hours; the average cost was more than half a million dollars per incident

IP theft and financial crime account for at least 75 percent of cyber losses and pose the greatest threat to companies

Damage to companies also includes downtime, brand reputation and reduced efficiency

56 percent of surveyed organizations said they do not have a plan to both prevent and respond to a cyber-incident.

McAfee Corp. (Nasdaq: MCFE) – McAfee, today, released a new global report titled “The Hidden Costs of Cybercrime,” which focuses on the significant financial and unseen impacts that cybercrime has worldwide. The report, conducted in partnership with the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), concludes that cybercrime costs the world economy more than $1 trillion, or just more than one percent of global GDP, which is up more than 50 percent from a 2018 study that put global losses at close to $600 billion. Beyond the global figure, the report also explored the damage reported beyond financial losses, finding 92 percent of companies felt effects beyond monetary losses.

“The severity and frequency of cyberattacks on businesses continues to rise as techniques evolve, new technologies broaden the threat surface, and the nature of work expands into home and remote environments” said Steve Grobman, SVP and CTO at McAfee. “While industry and government are aware of the financial and national security implications of cyber-attacks, unplanned downtime, the cost of investigating breaches and disruption to productivity represent less appreciated high impact costs. We need a greater understanding of the comprehensive impact of cyber risk and effective plans in place to respond and prevent cyber incidents given the 100s of billions of dollars of global financial impact.”

The Hidden Costs of Cybercrime

The theft of intellectual property and monetary assets is damaging, but some of the most overlooked costs of cybercrime come from the damage to company performance. The survey revealed 92 percent of businesses felt there were other negative effects on their business beyond financial costs and lost work hours after a cyber incident. The report further explored the hidden costs and the lasting impact and damage cybercrime can have on an organization, including:

System Downtime – Downtime is a common experience for around two thirds of respondents’ organizations.  The average cost to organizations from their longest amount of downtime in 2019 was $762,231. Thirty-three percent of survey respondents stated IT security incident resulting in system downtime cost them between $100,000 and $500,000.

Reduced Efficiency – As a result of system downtime, organizations lost, on average, nine working hours a week leading to reduced efficiency. The average interruption to operations was 18 hours.

Incidence Response Costs – According to the report, it took an average of 19 hours for most organizations to move from the discovery of an incident to remediation. Many security incidents can be managed in-house, but major incidents can often require outside consults with high rates that form a significant portion of the cost of a large-scale incident.

Brand and reputation damage – The cost of rehabilitating the external image of the brand, working with outside consultancies to mitigate brand damage, or hiring new employees to prevent against future incidents is part of the cost of cybercrime. 26 percent of the respondents identified damage to brand from the downtime experienced because of a cyber-attack.

Companies Unprepared for Cyber Incidents

Through the research and analysis, the report found a lack of organization-wide understanding of cyber risk. This makes companies and agencies vulnerable to sophisticated social engineering tactics and, once a user is hacked, not recognizing the problem in time to stop the spread. According to the report, 56 percent of surveyed organizations said they do not have a plan to both prevent and respond to a cyber-incident. Out of the 951 organizations that actually had a response plan, only 32 percent said the plan was effective.

The report concludes with key ways for businesses to deal with cybercrime. These include uniform implementation of basic security measures, increased transparency by organizations and governments, standardization and coordination of cybersecurity requirements, providing cybersecurity awareness training for employees, and developing prevention and response plans.

Download a full copy of the Hidden Costs of Cybercrime report for a complete analysis of the research as well as visual representations of the data.

Methodology

McAfee commissioned independent technology market research specialist Vanson Bourne to undertake the research that this report is based on.

Between April and June 2020, the quantitative study was carried out, interviewing 1,500 IT and line of business decision makers. Respondents came from the US (300), Canada (200), the UK (200), France (200), Germany (200), Australia (200) and Japan (200). Respondents’ organizations have 1,000 or more employees and were from all sectors except construction and property. However, only IT decision makers were interviewed in the Government sector.

Interviews were conducted online using a rigorous multi-level screening process to ensure that only suitable candidates were given the opportunity to participate.

Additionally, CSIS utilized a survey of open source material on losses accompanied by interviews with Government officials, and an estimate adjusted by national income levels using International Monetary Fund (IMF) income data to determine the cost of cybercrime.

Muthoot Finance Partners with Bajaj Allianz to Launch “Muthoot Gold Shield” Gold Jewellery Insurance

Muthoot Finance, India’s largest gold loan NBFC has tied up with Bajaj Allianz General Insurance, India’s leading private general insurer to provide insurance on gold jewellery as part of their new initiative - “Muthoot Gold Shield”, which is backed and powered by Group Affinity All Risk policy of Bajaj Allianz General Insurance.

Muthoot Gold Shield is the Gold Jewellery Insurance Scheme launched by Muthoot Finance, for its customers in partnership with Bajaj Allianz General Insurance. The policy provides insurance coverage of gold jewellery for individuals. This is designed to provide insurance coverage of gold jewellery articles for customers of the company at the time of closure of gold loan and release of gold ornaments. It will provide insurance coverage to the customers of Muthoot Finance as a loyalty product.. 

Mr. George Alexander Muthoot, Managing Director, Muthoot Finance said, “Muthoot Finance as a company has always believed in the philosophy of helping people and giving back to society. Going by the initial overwhelming response received to this insurance policy, it has been widely accepted by the customers of the Company. As part of our ongoing customer loyalty programme and social commitment, we are providing customers insurance coverage with an objective to build confidence and help move ahead in life without any fear.”

Speaking on the occasion, Mr. Tapan Singhel, MD & CEO, Bajaj Allianz General Insurance said, “At Bajaj Allianz General Insurance, our endeavour has always been to offer products to ensure that citizens are safeguarded against exigencies. Gold jewellery is an integral part of our country’s culture and hence we have curated this product specifically for financially shielding customers of Muthoot Finance in case of any unforeseen events, thus making them worry-free about their jewellery.”

The Scheme has the following unique benefits which are exclusive to this Insurance Policy:

1.It is one of the simplest and easiest ways of obtaining gold jewellery insurance coverage

2.Policy covers Burglary, Robbery, theft from insured person’s home, loss-in-transit and 13 other disasters (natural calamities)

3.This is a standalone gold jewellery insurance offering

4.Companies typically provide gold jewellery insurance as part of home insurance along with insurance of other articles at home. Normally, the percentage of insurance coverage for gold jewellery is restricted by some insurance companies to a maximum of 15% of the total home insurance policy sum insured.  For instance, if an individual wants to take a jewellery insurance coverage of 1.50 Lakhs from other insurance companies, he/ she will have to take a home insurance policy of about Rs. 10 Lakhs.

5. Muthoot Gold Shield is provided at a nominal premium, which is lower than industry average

6. ZERO documentation is required and it takes less than 2 minutes to generate a policy.

Indian Aviation Industry Net Losses of Rs 21,000 in FY2021: Icra Reports

Credit rating agency Icra Limited in a recent report said Indian airlines will post net losses of about Rs 21,000 crore during the fiscal year (FY) 2021, a result of the travel restrictions and impact on passenger traffic due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Icra said Indian airlines would require additional fundings to the tune of Rs 37,000 crore over FY2021 to FY2023 to recover from losses and debt, adding that the agency maintains a "negative credit outlook" on the Indian airline industry.

The report read: "The Indian aviation industry's capacity and passenger growth have been significantly impacted since the Covid-19 pandemic, due to which the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) stopped international travel operations with effect from March 23, 2020 and domestic travel operations with effect from March 25, 2020. Post the initial recommencement of operations of the scheduled domestic flights with effect from May 25, 2020 to a limited extent i.e. maximum 1/3rd of their respective approved capacity of Summer Schedule 2020, the MoCA permitted increasing the capacity to 45% with effect from June 27, 2020 and further to 60% with effect from September 02, 2020. However, the recovery in domestic passenger traffic has been rather subdued, even though there is substantial sequential improvement. With effect from November 11, 2020, the MoCA has increased the permitted capacity to 70%,andfurtherto80%witheffectfromDecember03,2020".

The profitability of the Indian airlines remains adversely impacted during FY2021 due to lower revenues and high fixed costs even though passenger traffic continues to improve sequentially.

During FY2020, Indian airlines had reported net losses of Rs 12,700 crore.

The overall airline industry debt is expected to increase to about Rs 50,000 crore, excluding lease liabilities by FY 2022, Icra said in its report.

"The two listed airlines [ndiGo and SpiceJet Limited] have together lost about Rs 31 crore per day during H1 FY2021 [April-September 2020]," the report further read, adding that daily loss for airlines has been reduced to Rs 26 crore during the September quarter due to improvement in domestic passenger traffic, and cost rationalisation initiatives by the airlines.

The report added that the recovery of domestic passenger traffic is however dependent on several factors, which include containing the spread of covid-19 infections, development and availability of vaccines, willingness to undertake leisure travel, and recovery in macroeconomic growth, among others.

Increase in the number of infections, and expectations of non-availability of a vaccine on a wide scale until the second half of calendar year 2021 are expected to impact air travel, it added.

"ICRA thus expects FY2021 to witness a higher decline of 62-64% in domestic passenger traffic, than its earlier estimates of 41-46% decline. With this, the domestic passenger traffic will reach much lower than the FY2011 levels," it said. The report added that a recovery in air travel is expected to be gradual once the Covid-19 threat diminishes.

However, with the international air travel heavily dependent on opening up of scheduled international operations by the government of India as well as easing of quarantine norms and restrictions initiated by various countries, the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on international air travel is expected to linger on longer as compared to domestic flights.

"Thus, Icra expects the FY2021 international passenger traffic for Indian carriers to witness a significant YoY [year-on-year] decline of about 88-89%, higher than its earlier estimates of about 67-72% decline," the report added.

"In the near term, the balance sheets of Indian carriers will remain stressed until the carriers are able to reduce their debt burden through a combination of improvement in operating performance and/or by way of equity infusion," the report read.

Mzaalo Enters A Video Partnership with Dailyhunt in Indian Market

Mzaalo, a blockchain-based video streaming application in the gamified video and entertainment ecosystem, today announced its multi-year partnership with news and content aggregator, Dailyhunt. The association allows Dailyhunt users to access Mzaalo's content, along with providing a unique opportunity to engage with the brand. 

Under this partnership, Mzaalo will power the video entertainment section as a premium partner offering engaging short and mid-format, snackable content. Mzaalo’s content stream is featured prominently within the Dailyhunt app feed for all its users. Apart from engaging and rewarding the users, the partnership leads to a potential growth in advertisement revenue for both the platforms.

The deal enables users to watch content on Dailyhunt and earn reward points, which can be redeemed to purchase products and services of leading brands by downloading Mzaalo app. These rewards further get stored in the users' digital wallet and can be spent on premium experiences, physical merchandise, partner products and services, digital goods, games, and charitable giving, amongst others. 

Mzaalo's algorithm empowers users to earn rewards that can be spent on more than 300 established brands across varied categories including health & fitness, fashion, accessories, electronics, travel & wellness, jewelry, amongst others. Over 280 monthly active users of Dailyhunt will have access to the entertainment platform that offers content in ten languages and has a library of over 50,000+ hours of content spanning across Movie titles, Original series, Live TV and more. 

Commenting on the partnership, Mr. Vikram Tanna, COO, Mzaalo said, "We are a content plus technology platform offering customized digital content in Hindi and 9 Indian regional languages. The collaboration with Dailyhunt allows us to expand our digital footprint by providing engaging content to users across the country. Today's, users are looking for good quality content, and as a brand, we aim to offer a unified experience in which users can consume premium content, get rewarded while having fun and purchase their favorite merchandise through secure and trusted blockchain-based video streaming platform".

 “The average Dailyhunt user spends 30 minutes every day. We are always pushing the needle to offer content experiences that make every one of those minutes count and, now with Mzaalo, be even more entertaining and rewarding for our users. At Dailyhunt, we witness firsthand the content aspirations of the local language user and Mzaalo allows us to meet those expectations in a more enriched manner.” Added, Mr. Umang Bedi, Co-Founder, Dailyhunt.

Tata Motors Delivers e-Buses to BEST; Helps Environmentally-Friendly Mass Mobility Solution for Mumbai

 

Key highlights:

* With the complete order of 340 electric buses, Tata Motors initiates deployment of 26 Tata Ultra Urban e-buses

* Event flagged of by Hon’ble Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Mr. Uddhav Thackeray

* As part of the ‘One Tata’ initiative – Tata Motors , Tata Power and Tata Auto Components will be working together to bring sustainable solutions for electric mass mobility

Tata Motors, India’s largest commercial vehicle manufacturer, today strengthens its relation with Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) and delivers 26 state-of-the-art electric buses. The delivery marks the commencement of the first ever Gross Cost Contract (GCC) electric bus service to BEST. The buses are delivered as a part of the larger order of 340 electric buses from BEST under the government of India’s FAME II initiative, with the rest lined up to be delivered in a phased manner as per schedule. The 25-seater Tata Ultra Urban 9/9 electric AC buses were flagged off by the Hon’ble Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Mr. Uddhav Thackeray in the presence of dignitaries from the Maharashtra state government, BEST and Tata Motors, at an event at Nariman Point, Mumbai. Tata Motors will be undertaking to build, deploy, maintain and operate the complete charging infrastructure along with the buses across four Mumbai depots of – Backbay, Worli, Malvani and Shivaji Nagar.

Under the unique ‘One Tata’ initiative, the company leverages the core competences of various group companies. Tata Power will be contributing by taking complete charge of upstream and downstream electrical facilities including supplies and shall also be responsible for the complete bus charging facility. Tata Auto Components will undertake collaborations, design, development, sourcing and supply of select components to Tata Motors under the initiative. The electric buses are indigenously developed by Tata Motors using the latest manufacturing technology to offer the best comfort for the passengers and low cost of operations for BEST.

Commenting on the occasion, Mr. Girish Wagh, President, Commercial Vehicle Business Unit, Tata Motors said, Tata Motors is delighted to have delivered the first 26 of the 340 electric buses for the city of Mumbai. The buses have been specially designed keeping the comfort and convenience of Mumbaikars including a “lift mechanism” for differently abled travellers. Tata Motors’ global standards of manufacturing processes and vehicle development centres have helped in innovating and leading the electric mobility solutions from the front. We will continue to play a proactive role in the government’s electrification drive.”

The 25-seater Tata Ultra Urban AC electric buses are equipped with advanced features for the comfort of the driver and the passengers like: ‘Lift Mechanism’ that extends an automated ramp for easy ingress and egress of specially abled passengers, along with ergonomic seats, roomy interiors, utility provisions like charging ports, WiFi hotspot for on-the-go connectivity and wide entry and exit passages. The full-electric buses come with Intelligent Transport System (ITS), telematics system, regenerative braking system, amongst other features for efficient and smooth operations. The buses have been tested and validated by Tata Motors across states including Himachal Pradesh, Chandigarh, Assam and Maharashtra to establish performance in diverse terrains.

Tata Motors, under the FAME I initiative, has supplied 215 electric buses in 5 cities across India, which have been received well by the STU and the citizens alike. The electric buses cumulatively have clocked more than 4 million kilometres, thereby providing critical data and statistics to further innovate and upgrade Tata Motors’ electric buses product portfolio. In addition to the tenders under FAME I, Tata Motors has received orders from several state transport units in FAME phase II: 60 buses from AJL, 100 buses from Jaipur City Transport Services Limited and 300 buses by BEST in Mumbai. Apart from these, Tata Motors has also delivered 25 hybrid buses to MMRDA – India’s first specially-abled-friendly buses.

56% e-Commerce Order Volume Growth this Festive Season: Unicommerce Festive Trends Report

Unicommerce, India‘s largest e-commerce focused SaaS platform, has once again brought an insightful data-driven festive trends report to understand the changing dynamics of India’s e-commerce ecosystem. The report analyses shopping trends for the festive month of 2019 and 2020. The time period for the analysis is 30 days prior to Diwali with a sample size of over 44mn orders.

This festive season e-commerce industry reported ~56% growth in order volume as compared to the festive season last year*. The increasing order volume also led to the 50% growth in GMV as compared to the last year festive season. "The consumers have become more value conscious than before and now are shopping across new categories. The rise of new categories such as personal care and beauty products and higher sales of lower value products has led to a decline in average order value by 4% as compared to last year's festive season.

This was the first festive season after the world was hit by the pandemic earlier this year and the report deep-dives into sector-wise growth, rising demands from consumers from “Bharat” and trying to understand the new consumer behaviour. The report will also decode some interesting facts about the growth of brand websites and companies getting serious and focused on the D2C business model. 

What India Shopped during festive season

● One of the most promising signs for the e-commerce industry is the rising number of first-time online shoppers and the new emerging categories. Personal care category has emerged as the biggest gainer with ~176% order volume growth over last year's festive month. Beauty and wellness is another category that has reported ~52% order volume growth as compared to previous year’s festive season.

● As people plan to travel and meet families during the festive season, the number of consumers indulging in fashion shopping during the Diwali sale increases significantly. This festive season, fashion and accessories category witnessed an order volume growth of 71% as compared to previous year’s festive month, which is higher than the industry average.

● The electronics segment continues to be the highlight of festive season sales, with all marketplaces extensively promoting discounts and offers on electronic products. The segment saw a substantial growth of 65% in order volume as compared to the festive month of 2019.

● Returns continue to be a concern for e-tailers across India. The automation and increasing consumer awareness is leading to consistent decrease in returns. This festive season, the industry overall observed a 35% decrease in return orders as compared to the last year. The fashion and accessories category continues to the category with maximum return orders.

Brands Focused on going D2C

● This year we have seen brands getting serious about online selling with constant growth in brands developing their own website. Post lockdown, the brands have started adopting technology solutions to improve business efficiency.

● This festive season, not just marketplaces but brand websites have also reported huge growth in consumer demand. Big brands are now committed towards selling through their own websites. The brand websites witnessed ~77% order volume growth as compared to 60% order volume growth of the marketplace.

● It’s interesting to see that in spite of the disparity in order volume growth there is a marginal difference in GMV growth of brand websites and the marketplaces. The GMV for brand websites increased by 48% while for marketplaces the GMV increased by 50%. This signifies that brands offered more discount on their own websites than marketplaces to get more customers. This also led to a significantly low average order size on brand websites. The average order size on the brand website decreased by 16% as compared to 5% dip for the marketplaces for the period of last year's festive month.

Increasing shoppers from Tier-II and Tier III cities of India

● The Tier II and Tier III cities have been growing way-faster than metropolitan cities and its impact is also visible in the festive season sale as well.  The Tier II and beyond cities have witnessed a growth of ~99% as compared to last year's festive season. The growth in Tier I and metropolitan cities remain at around 20%. 

● The contribution of Tier II and beyond cities is increasing exponentially. In this festive season, Tier II  and beyond cities of India contributed over 59% of the online consumer demand of  India, while traditional metros and Tier I cities contributed around 41% to the overall online retail.

● States with metropolitan cities continue to be the dominating states with Delhi, Maharashtra and Karnataka being the biggest drivers of e-commerce. These three states combined contribute ~55% of India’s e-commerce volume in the festive month.

Speaking on the festive season report, Mr. Kapil Makhija, CEO Unicommerce said “The festive season is the most important and opportunistic time of the year for the e-commerce industry. However, this festive season was particularly more special as the world continues to deal with the effects of the pandemic. This festive month we have seen e-commerce grow beyond expectations, and it’s interesting to see the new emerging categories like personal care and beauty and wellness continuing their growth trajectory even during the festive season. With the rising consumer demand on brand websites, brands are now committed towards going D2C and offering great deals to attract more consumers. We are confident that with the rising number of shoppers from Tier II and Tier III cities, the ecommerce industry will continue to see the growth momentum in the coming years. This report is another step in our continuous effort of providing valuable insights about the e-commerce industry and helping sellers to simplify e-commerce selling.”

With e-commerce at its all-time high, Unicommerce is uniquely positioned to provide e-commerce supply chain technology cloud solutions to help industry players of all sizes to manage their business efficiently.  Established eight years ago, Unicommerce is a market leader processing over 20% of India’s e-commerce volumes in the country and works with leading online players across segments. The company processes 700k+ order items per day, amounting to US$ 2.5 Bn+ GMV for over 10,000 registered customers across India, Middle East and Southeast Asia.

About Unicommerce

Unicommerce eSolutions is India‘s leading e-commerce focused supply chain SaaS platform. Established eight years ago, Unicommerce is a market leader processing over 20% e-commerce volumes in the country. The company has disrupted the e-commerce and retail industry with clients like Myntra, Netmeds, Urban company, Jack & Jones, Vero Moda to name a few and has also started working with clients in international markets. The company has been profitable for over three years and aims to further deepen its presence in the country and expand aggressively in international markets.

Providing Employees with the Right technology, Security and Experience are Key to Successful Remote Working

* Majority of employees (58%) are confident that their employer needs to provide better tools to work remotely: Atlassian survey 

By Ross Chippendale, Head of Workplace Technology, Atlassian 

Within a few weeks, many workers around the world were forced to trade in their office - with all the benefits of a familiar IT environment, the convenience of having their own desk and personal contact with employees - for the home office.  

For companies, this transition also presented challenges on various fronts. In addition to maintaining both ongoing operations and the productivity, efficiency and motivation of employees, some employers decided to hire new employees despite the prevailing crisis. From recruiting to onboarding - alternative processes had to be created for these processes and technologies had to be used to enable them - just like the actual work itself - to be implemented remotely. 

Many companies struggled with the politically, economically and socially difficult situation during this period. Just what impact does such a change have on the onboarding of new employees, and what will this process look like in the future?  

Secure and consistent 

Two factors play a major role with regard to IT when a large number of employees work remotely, ensuring security on one hand and consistent IT usage - or the (digital) employee experience - on the other.  

Even if a company assumes that its network is basically resilient, it must be effectively secured against cybercriminal attacks despite several thousand connections. To counteract this, a zero-trust security strategy must be developed and implemented comprehensively across all business units and the entire IT landscape. 

While building a resilient infrastructure can prove relatively easy, maintaining a consistent employee experience can prove much more tricky. The modern employee insists that working from home feels and functions just as if he were in his traditional workplace. Although flexible working has proven its worth in recent months, there is a growing need for the right equipment such as monitors, (ergonomic) office chairs, mice and keyboards. Since most offices will only be used to around 50 percent capacity in the future, any equipment that may have been previously used should be handed out to all teleworkers, so that they are fully equipped and can work as usual.  

Onboarding in times of remote work  

This experience would vastly vary across organisations. However, in our case, since a portion of the workforce was already teleworking full-time before Corona, the company benefited from existing processes and continued to enhance the onboarding experience. 

IT teams as agile ‘product managers’ 

To gather more insights around remote work, a recent study by us showed that 58 percent of employees surveyed worldwide are confident that their employer needs to provide better tools, so that every employee can work remotely more effectively. 

Even before the pandemic, employees preferred different tools and approaches to perform their daily work. Now, as remote work becomes more widespread, IT teams need to ensure that everyone has access to the technology they trust, including existing and new telecommuters. A 'product management approach' can be used to identify these needs. IT professionals, whose primary concerns used to be implementation effort and costs, should adopt a user-centric approach. Instead of asking whether a project is within budget, they can now find answers to questions like "What do my colleagues want? What do they need to get their work done? Where are their biggest pain points?" By doing so, they can prevent employees from getting frustrated by using their personal devices and software that have not been approved by the IT department, thus posing an increased security risk. 

The use of agile methods can help the IT team to approach a project. To do this, they need to think outside the box and look for working methods that are different from the traditional practices of many IT teams in other areas. 

Conclusion 

Despite the prevailing crisis situation, it is possible for companies to hire new employees and offer them a simple onboarding process - and all this remotely. Employers must also provide new employees in their home offices with the right technology - both in the form of devices and accessories and software. The home office environment must be made as secure and consistent as possible. Good virtual onboarding is most successful when you take advantage of the solutions that are available to you. Introductory videos and access to ample digital resources make it easier for new employees to find their way around both the company itself and its IT landscape - even if they have never seen the team in person. For a successful implementation, end user requirements must be given high priority. This often means establishing working methods and practices that differ from traditional ways of working.