Businesses still not taking data security seriously, feel Indian consumers

Despite a rise in cyber crimes, at least six in 10 Indian consumers feel businesses don't take the security of their data very seriously and 70 percent of them would stop doing business with a company if it experienced a data breach, a new study said on Thursday.

According to the global security leader Gemalto, consumers too are failing to adequately secure themselves, with over half of the Indian respondents (51 percent) still using the same password for multiple online accounts.

"Only 39 percent of Indian consumers feel businesses take customer data security very seriously. Retailers (76 percent), banks (74 percent) and social media sites (71 percent) operating in India were found to have a lot of work to do, with these being sectors that consumers would leave if they suffered a breach," the report noted.

The survey involved more than 10,000 consumers worldwide.

"Consumers are evidently happy to relinquish the responsibility of protecting their data to a business, but are expecting it to be kept secure without any effort on their part," Jason Hart, CTO, Identity and Data Protection at Gemalto, said in a statement.

"In the face of brewing conversations around data protection and privacy law, it's now up to businesses to ensure they are forcing security protocols on their customers to keep data secure," Hart added.

According to the report, Indian respondents have poor security hygiene and fail to take advantage of security measures available to them such as two-factor authentication (28 percent) for social media accounts.

This is resulting in businesses being forced to take additional steps to protect consumers and enforce robust security measures, as well as educate them on the benefits of adopting these.

Despite their behaviour, consumers' security concerns are high, as two thirds (68 percent) worry they will be victims of a data breach in the near future in India.

Consequently, consumers now hold businesses accountable if their data is stolen.

The majority (96 percent) of consumers would take or consider taking legal action against the compromised business.