BENGALURU: More than nine in ten (92 percent) of surveyed adults in India say they are fearful that cyber hackers are carrying out attacks on major industries and sectors of the economy in their countries, according to the results of a global study announced today by Honeywell Process Solutions (HPS), an automation and control systems for a variety of industries. Of the 10 countries surveyed, India had the highest percentage of respondents who said they were very fearful or somewhat fearful of cyber attacks.

More than one third of Indian respondents (34 percent) indicated they do not believe that it is possible to stop all the cyber attacks. Six in ten (61 percent) report they don’t have faith in India’s ability to keep up with cyber attacks because they feel that government and organizations are not taking these threats seriously enough – the highest among countries surveyed. The next two highest were China (48 percent) and Mexico (47 percent).

“Cyber attacks are a clear and present threat to every industry, in every country throughout the world,” said Michael Chertoff, co-founder and executive chairman of the Chertoff Group, and former head of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. “This threat is real and industries need a proactive and coordinated approach to protect their assets as well as their intellectual property. We have seen a number of attacks to critical industries in areas like the Middle East and the U.S. and these have had major impacts on their operations.”

The British government estimates that cyber security breaches at British energy companies alone cost those companies about 400 million pounds ($664 million) every year. In the United States, the Department of Homeland Security said that more than 40 percent of industrial cyber attacks targeted the energy industry in 2012, the last full year reported.

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