According to the recent Kaspersky IT Security Economics report, the majority of companies surveyed globally find the loss of productivity, securing complex tech environments, and enabling data protection to be the most concerning business issues, driven by growing IT security needs and requirements. In South Africa, organisations also mentioned dealing with poor end-user security culture as their concern.
The Kaspersky IT Security Economics report is released every year to analyse the changes in budgets, breaches and business challenges affecting IT Security decision makers. This report is compiled from interviews with IT and IT security professionals from organisations of different sizes and industries. The survey was carried out in 27 countries across Europe, the Asia-Pacific region, Latin America, North America, the Middle East, Turkiye and the Africa (META) region, including in South Africa.
According to the report, downtime and lost productivity are the most concerning business problems caused by ineffective IT security, an opinion expressed by 38% of companies globally, 40% of companies in South Africa and 34% in the META region. They encounter this problem mainly because of the long time taken to detect and remediate threats.
Data protection is another important concern that was expressed by 33% of companies globally and similarly by 26% in South Africa and 34% across the META region. Respondents were worried about this because they regularly encountered the physical loss of devices by employees and experienced leakage of data from corporate systems caused by both external and internal reasons.
Securing complex technology environments and ensuring data connectivity were also on the list of key concerns, according to 33% of respondents globally, 14% in South Africa and 26% across the META region. Among the main IT issues that cause this challenge, respondents pointed to the rising number of incidents involving non-computing connected devices and incorrect operations of cybersecurity solutions that leave systems exposed.
Additionally, difficulties in managing security across different computing platforms play a crucial role in their inability to build a reliable all-encompassing cybersecurity system. 40% of businesses surveyed in South Africa also mention dealing with poor end-user security culture as their major concern.
“It is crucial for organisations to safeguard every aspect of their operations from potential breaches. Attackers no longer solely rely on zero-day exploits, as a simple click on a malicious link or a vulnerability in a contractor’s infrastructure can lead to devastating consequences. This underscores the idea that information security should be based on a comprehensive and systematic approach, rather than being limited to the implementation of individual point-specific measures,” comments Alexey Vovk, information security director at Kaspersky.