Report States Half of Companies Worldwide Not Prepared to Combat Cyber Threats

According to a survey conducted by B2B International on behalf of Kaspersky Lab, half of companies are not knowledgeable about the potential security threats they may face.  A significant number of key IT specialists surveyed were not aware of any of the most common cyber threats - including those targeting the corporate sector, while 31% of respondents admitted they had never heard of any of the cyber epidemics that recently posed direct threats to their organizations.

 

A further 58% of the IT professionals surveyed highlighted a lack of resources into both staffing and improving IT security systems, reducing the organizations ability to cope with cyber security threats. This was mainly due to poor understanding among senior managers of the reasons why IT departments exist - that is, their objectives and the reasoning behind them.

 

Results from the survey also revealed that 35% of companies have insufficient numbers of personnel trained to deal with IT threats - an issue particularly prevalent in North America. However, this problem cannot be dealt with simply by hiring new employees; existing staff also need to be educated. This is emphasized by the low level of computer literacy among employees, which can lead to confidential information leakages, and to the infection - or even total disablement - of a company's IT infrastructure. Therefore teaching staff the basics of IT security should be no less important than installing the latest security software.

 

To download the full report on the B2B International survey, please click here.