by Roshni Mulchandani
I. Introduction
With the COVID-19 pandemic shutting down offices and forcing organizations to adopt a “Work from Home” policy for its employees, data security concerns have increased significantly.[1] Even though such policies have brought in greater workplace flexibility, they have also brought in a newfound opportunity for threat actors.[2] With remote access systems allowing individuals to log into devices from anywhere, an easy and vulnerable point entry is available for hackers to access organizational trade secrets, jeopardising cybersecurity. This has created a safety concern for companies who are reeling from such threats and finding it hard to maintain organizational cybersecurity with the limited safety network.[3]This has also created a bigger onus on companies to protect the safety of confidential client data that they hold.[4] In such a case, running its operations with a loose hold on security measures becomes a highly risky path to trod upon.[5]
By allowing “Work from Home” policies, Indian organizations assume the role of “Intermediaries”[6] under the Information Technology Act (2000) and therefore become duty bound to protect the data of their clients.[7] Even though India does not have a dedicated law on cybersecurity or a specialized law on privacy,[8] it must undertake all procedures to revamp its cybersecurity mechanisms to safeguard against data threats in such unprecedented times.