Complex environments are the second most prominent security concern following second year of pandemic, says Kaspersky

11/16/2021 10:27:33 PM

The cost of securing increasingly complex environments has soared to second place in the top challenges IT leaders say their businesses are facing in 2021, according to Kaspersky's ‘IT Security Economics’ report.

This ranking went up from third place last year and sixth place in 2018, as this complexity of digitalization, remote work and cloud usage growth may impact organizations’ visibility of threats and incident response.

The previous year saw lockdowns and remote work stimulate the use of digital technologies in businesses. A study by McKinsey & Company saw companies accelerating the digitization of their customer and supply-chain interactions along with the share of digital or digitally-enabled products in their portfolios that was made possible through massive adoption of new IT services and changes to IT infrastructure.

Businesses had to ensure the safety of all these innovations, which became a real challenge for almost half of all companies (44%). Only data protection was higher – the concern that has stayed in first place for several years already. The cost of securing complex environments turned out to be even more crucial than ensuring compliance with security policies which stayed in second place for the last two years.

Cloud adoption has also contributed to IT infrastructure complexity, according to the cybersecurity company. Kaspersky’s IT Security Economics 2021: Managing the trend of growing IT complexity [] shows that in 2020-2021, the use of all types of cloud, including public and private ones, has grown to 88%, compared with only 72% in 2019. In addition, virtual desktop infrastructure, which should have helped companies organize remote access to corporate workspaces to work safely from home, increased from 82% to 86%.

The problem with complex infrastructure is not only that it is difficult to roll out security tools. It makes it much more difficult to track down the signs of an attack and respond to it in a timely way to minimize the possible damage. Proving this is the lack of visibility over the infrastructure which became the most common challenge (41%) organizations face when dealing with complex threats.

Fortunately, the issue stimulates investment. Almost half (47%) of enterprises named the increased complexity of their IT infrastructure as the top reason to increase their IT security budget (compared to 43% in 2020).

“When it comes to corporate cybersecurity, the matter is not only related to ever-evolving threats. A heterogeneous and constantly changing corporate IT infrastructure further increases the stakes. On one hand, it complicates the very process of protection; on the other, the consequences of a successful attack may be much more difficult to address. Fortunately, the cybersecurity industry doesn’t standstill. The most up-to-date threat intelligence and solutions for detection and response should help organizations undertake the challenge and embrace any innovations for their business growth,” said Sergey Martsynkyan, VP, Corporate Product Marketing at Kaspersky.

To protect complex infrastructure, with cloud and on-premises workloads, VDI (Virtual Desktop Infrastructure) and remote workforce, organizations should look for a solution with strong detection and response capabilities. The solution should give visibility of threats in any endpoint with background information about malicious activity and options for response actions. Kaspersky Hybrid Cloud Security -— which includes updated Kaspersky Security for Virtualization Light Agent, dedicated to the protection of virtualized environments and VDI -— now integrates with Kaspersky Endpoint Detection and Response Optimum, Kaspersky Sandbox, and Kaspersky Anti Targeted Attack Platform. Together with endpoint security, they ensure essential protection for the infrastructure of any complexity.

Visit Kasperksy's official website to know more about their offering related to this story, the Kaspersky Hybrid Cloud Security

Author: slickmaster | © 2021 The SlickMaster's Files