New Delhi, Feb 19 (IANS): Budgets are increasing for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in India due to the rise of AI, global economic uncertainties and evolving security threats, a new report said on Monday, adding that “India respondents appear better prepared for cyber attacks.

SMEs in the country reported the highest overall budget increase (92 per cent), with only 8 per cent reporting that budgets were either ‘remaining flat’ or decreasing -- a positive outlook when compared to other countries surveyed, according to the report by US-based enterprise software company JumpCloud.

“Companies in India are fast-moving and agile. They are seeking platform-based device and identity management solutions that scale to match their growth ambitions while also helping to meet emerging compliance and security challenges,” said Greg Keller, chief technology officer, JumpCloud.

Among top three security threats globally, network attacks topped the list, followed by software vulnerability exploits and ransomware.

In India, software vulnerability exploits topped the list (36 per cent), followed by network attacks (35 per cent) with multi-factor authentication (MFA) in third place (26 per cent).

Overall, IT admins are more optimistic about IT spending than six months ago.

About 92 per cent of India respondents expect budgets to increase either slightly or significantly, which is above the global average of 80 per cent, said the report.

Adoption of AI is accelerating in India. Only 4 per cent of India respondents have no plans to adopt AI compared to 13 per cent of the US respondents and 23 per cent of the UK respondents.

“Additionally, 82 per cent of India respondents think their organisation should be investing in AI, versus the global average of 76 per cent,” the report added.