WhatsApp Names Grievance Officer
WhatsApp has named Paresh B Lal as its grievance officer for India on its website. As per WhatsApp’s website, users can contact Paresh B Lal through a post box in Banjara Hills in Hyderabad, Telangana.
The move comes in the backdrop of the new IT rules coming into effect last week that require significant social media intermediaries – those with over 50 lakh users – to appoint a grievance officer, nodal officer and a chief compliance officer. These personnel are required to be resident in India.
The rules also require these social media platforms to publish a monthly compliance report mentioning the details of complaints received and action taken on the complaints as well as details of contents removed proactively. As per the new rules, all intermediaries have to prominently publish on their website, app or both, the name of the grievance officer and his/her contact details. The officer will have to acknowledge the complaint within 24 hours and dispose of complaint within 15 days from the date of its receipt.
Under the new rules, social media platforms will have to take down flagged content within 36 hours, and remove within 24 hours content that is flagged for nudity, pornography etc.
India Tops List of 30 Countries Worldwide for Ransomware Attacks
Sophos, a next-generation cybersecurity player, has announced the findings of its global survey, “The State of Ransomware 2021,” which reveals that the average total cost of recovery from a ransomware attack has more than doubled in a year, increasing from $761,106 in 2020 to $1.85 million in 2021 globally. In comparison, the survey found that in India, the approximate recovery cost from the impact of a ransomware attack tripled in the last year, up from $1.1 million in 2020, to $3.38 in 2021.
Furthermore, the survey findings show that 67% of Indian organizations whose data was encrypted paid a ransom to get back their data – a slight increase on the previous year when 66% paid a ransom. In fact, Indian organizations were the most likely to pay a ransom of all countries surveyed: the global average was just under one third (32%). The average ransom payment in India was US$76,619. However, paying up often doesn’t pay off: Indian organizations that paid the ransom got back, on average, 75% of their data (compared to a global average of 65%) and only 4% got all their data back.
The survey polled 5,400 IT decision makers in mid-sized organizations in 30 countries across Europe, the Americas, Asia-Pacific and Central Asia, the Middle East, and Africa, including 300 respondents in India.
The survey also found that 86% of Indian organizations believe cyberattacks are now too complex for their IT team to handle on their own, compared to a global average of 54%. Additionally, the findings revealed that of the organizations in India not hit by ransomware in the last 12 months, the overwhelming majority (86%) expect to become a target. The top reason given for this (57%) is that ransomware attacks are getting increasingly hard to stop due to their sophistication.
