According to the recent Kaspersky report, the majority of geographically distributed companies (62%) identify a difference between the levels of digital protection between their locations: 48% of these companies admit this problem but do not consider it critical, while the rest 14% said. its branches require many more digital security measures to be implemented. However, Kaspersky experts warn companies with branches in multiple locations that such a discrepancy can put the entire organization at risk.
Kaspersky’s recent report “Manage geographically distributed companies: : challenges and solutions» provides deeper insight into the network and information security challenges facing geographically distributed companies and highlights the solutions organizations are using to overcome these difficulties.
According to the report, only 38% of respondents were confident that cyber threat protection at their headquarters (HQ) was as effective as local offices. However, the majority of companies surveyed (62%) said that there was a difference between these levels of cyber security: 48% of them believed that the problem existed but was not that critical and said that most of the ‘local offices were generally well protected, 13. % was not so enthusiastic and assumed that only a few branches were under control. 1% of respondents said that none of the local offices were really safe.
In addition to budget constraints, another reason for this disparity is the lack of trust in local expertise. In 37% of cases, the head office assumed responsibility for all cyber security activities in subsidiaries, claiming that local staff lacked sufficient knowledge and skills. Even in the 60% of cases where cybersecurity tasks were split equally between headquarters and local teams, all activities were overseen by headquarters.
“While the most sensitive data can be kept centrally, access to the company’s assets is clearly needed from many places, and when they are not well protected like the headquarters, security risks are created for the whole “organization. Perhaps there is a misconception that a lower level of protection will suffice for places that play a secondary role in the company’s structure.
However, cybercriminals do not care which party is attacked – whether it is headquarters or subsidiaries – they can penetrate a company’s infrastructure from anywhere. Therefore, it is important to enable protection that is equally effective in all locations.” comments Anton Solovey, Senior Product Manager (XDR) at Kaspersky.
To protect geographically distributed companies from digital threats, Kaspersky experts recommend using centralized and automated solutions such as Kaspersky Next XDR Expert, to ensure complete digital protection of all company assets and processes, both at headquarters and in local offices. Aggregating and correlating data from multiple sources in one place and leveraging machine learning technologies, this solution provides effective threat detection and rapid automated response.