Small companies of up to 50 employees are significantly less concerned about employee activities leading to cybersecurity breaches than larger corporations.
Small companies of up to 50 employees are significantly less concerned about employee activities leading to cybersecurity breaches than larger corporations. Only 36% of small businesses worry about their staff’s carelessness while more than half of medium-sized and large enterprises consider it a major concern, says the IT Security Risks Report 2016 by Kaspersky Lab.
Uninformed or careless staff, whose inappropriate use of IT resources can put an organisation’s cyber protection in jeopardy, can harm businesses of any size. According to the survey, employee actions are among the top three security challenges that make companies worldwide feel vulnerable. In South Africa, more than half (78%) of the businesses that experienced cybersecurity incidents in 2016 admitted that careless and uninformed employee behaviour had been a contributor.
Like large corporations, small and medium-sized businesses face the challenge of managing a constantly evolving IT infrastructure, as well as accommodating BYOD trends. In South Africa, 76% of companies (large and small businesses) reported that the amount of smartphones used for work had increased over the last three years and 68% confirmed that the same is applicable for tablets. This new business reality is forcing management to pay more attention to IT security and the centralised control of potentially dangerous employee activities, even in the smallest businesses.
“In small businesses without dedicated IT personnel, it is often the case that staff have to implement cybersecurity themselves - for example, by installing free antimalware solutions with limited functionality. This poses major risks for a company because one employee’s carelessness can easily affect all data within the organisation - leading to instant losses in time, clients’ data and money’. Businesses should implement solutions specifically designed for small and medium-sized businesses, with protection that any IT administrator, even with low IT skills, can easily maintain from everywhere.” said Vladimir Zapolyansky, Head of SMB Marketing, Kaspersky Lab.
Companies can protect themselves with a range of solutions dedicated to meet the specific requirements of very small, small and medium-sized business as their needs vary. The Kaspersky Endpoint Security for Business and Kaspersky Small Office Security provide multi-layered protection from well-known and emerging threats, while Kaspersky Endpoint Security Cloud, with its simple cloud-based console, provides business owners and senior non-IT management with a cost-efficient and intuitive tool to ensure cybersecurity without needing additional hardware or IT-personnel.
More information on how businesses perceive IT security challenges can be found in the report Business Perception of IT Security: In the Face of an Inevitable Compromise by Kaspersky Lab.
