Business must invest against threats

Many businesses regard cyber-threats as the second most dangerous risk they face, but, according to a recent Kaspersky Lab survey, companies need to invest more money to protect themselves from these threats.

Research shows that cyber-security threats are becoming more diverse and frequent, and pose greater dangers than ever for businesses worldwide. According to half of those surveyed, cybercrime in its various forms is the second biggest threat to business. Their companies most often face malware, spam and unauthorised attempts to penetrate the system. What’s more important, in future, businesses surveyed anticipate concern about these threats growing further in significance over the next two years surpassing even the fear of economic problems.

Alexander Erofeev, Chief Marketing Officer of Kaspersky Lab, said: ‚”A typical modern business is based on an infrastructure of thousands of devices, including not just desktops but also employees’ own gadgets, corporate smartphones and laptops. Corporate culture is rapidly changing, with employees becoming increasingly active in social networking and using web resources as a means of exchanging corporate information. This offers enhanced flexibility, however also makes networks more vulnerable to cybercrime. We are concentrating on developing effective and easily managed security solutions that meet the requirements of this new age.‚”

According to the survey results, IT professionals are well aware of the dangers of cybercrime. Yet only 59% of respondents feel that they are more or less prepared for them. According to the survey, the main problem is money-related – 44% of respondents indicated budget constraints and 37% cited a significant degree of misunderstanding of IT security issues among those in charge of the purse strings. As a result, it turns out that that the main problem for IT professionals is their inability to make their management understand just how important corporate protection against cyber-threats really is.

The Global IT Security Risks survey, which was carried out in July 2012, explored the opinions of IT security professionals all over the world about what they considered the major issues in their sphere. As part of the survey, 3,300 senior IT professionals from 22 countries across the globe shared their views. All the respondents are actively involved in their companies’ decision-making processes, including IT security-related topics.

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