Pandemic driven cyber threats push small businesses to revaluate security budgets 

In an unprecedented turn of events, the pandemic accelerated the cyber security spend of Indian small businesses. Suresh Gandhi, Co-Founder, and Director of Ecaps Computers India explains the reason behind it – 

-Samrita Baruah

The pandemic has taught businesses, among other things, to be resilient and flexible. While many small businesses bore the brunt of the lockdowns with operations coming to a complete halt, there were also many office oriented businesses that resorted to the Work From Home (WFH) policy.

When commuting to office became just next to impossible, employers thought it wise to let their employees work remotely to ensure business continuity. And with that decision came the demand for more security.  

“We had seen an incredible increase of spending in the cyber security space among small businesses. The sudden rise in the number of cyber-criminal activities during the pandemic necessitated this change,” observes Suresh Gandhi, Co-Founder, and Director of Ecaps Computers India. 

Securing the enterprise data and the connections for the remote workforce became the prime concern for these businesses. Many enterprises, especially e-commerce companies that have in their possession personal data of their customers, losing them to cyber criminals would mean financial loss and legal repercussions. They were tasked with securing everything – right from the server to the network and the endpoints. So investing in the right security tools and controls seemed just the right solution for them.    

Also, the transition to the cloud has been very swift during the pandemic. After employees started working remotely, businesses looked to adopting cloud tools and applications for ensuring effective staff collaboration and communication with customers. Another area that picked up really well is the digital payment space that replaced cash transactions and became primarily the main mode of transaction during the lockdown. With businesses going digital, there was the risk of them becoming victims of cyberattacks.

There also had been many reports that recorded an increase in the volume of ransomware and phishing attacks against small businesses because of lack of the right security measure at their end. All these factors played a major role in driving businesses to earmark a certain amount of their budgets for cybersecurity. 

““It was interesting to see small enterprise customers, who had limited cybersecurity measures in place earlier, finally shifting their focus to readjusting their security priorities and strategies. And it is not just with a handful of customers but this trend was seen with almost every small business,” reiterates Suresh. “The Covid-19 pandemic has indeed turned the tables by accelerating the demand for cybersecurity practices and tools.” 

A Business Model around WFH

Ecaps built its business mostly around WFH solutions after the pandemic hit. Suresh said that they were soon flooded with questions from customers who showed interest in investing in cyber security solutions. 

“They understood the fact that there is not much of huge investments required and that our solutions can be implemented seamlessly with their current IT infrastructure. The installation is easy and is customised as per their needs,” explains Suresh.

Solutions like Netfox, a brand owned by Ecaps, gained traction. The brand, besides offering an entire range of structured cabling solutions also has its own Firewall. To support small businesses, Netfox made available 10 VPN licenses free with every firewall appliance for every customer. 

Tally on Wan (TOW) is another solution that was conceptualised by Ecaps which would ensure that businesses kept their accounting operations going without any disruption. 

 “Most offices use Tally as their accounting software. And it is then we came up with the idea of offering Tally solution for Work from Home,” says Suresh. “While the license-based hardware is installed at the main office by connecting it with the server, those working from home can access it remotely from any location by installing the software in their devices. We tried to keep it as secured as possible and also did not compromise on the speed. This was again a huge success,” he explained.