Islamabad : According to the recent Kaspersky IT Security Economics report, the majority of companies 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 Pakistan data protection is a major business concern, while issues with business process outsourcing are also named by organizations as problematic. The Kaspersky IT Security Economics report is released every year to analyze 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 organizations 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 Pakistan. Data protection is an important concern that was expressed by 33% of companies globally and 61% in Pakistan. 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. 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 and 20% in Pakistan. They encounter this problem mainly because of long time taken to detect and remediate threats. Additionally,19% of organizations in Pakistan also mention issues with business process outsourcing as their major concern. Securing complex technology environments and ensuring data connectivity were also on the list of concerns, according to 33% of respondents globally and 9% in Pakistan. 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. “It is crucial for organizations 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. Kaspersky recommends using all-encompassing solutions such as from the Kaspersky Next product line, that provide real-time protection, threat visibility, advanced investigation and response capabilities for companies of any size and industry. Kaspersky also suggest providing your InfoSec professionals with in-depth visibility into the cyberthreats targeting your organization. For example, the latest Kaspersky Threat Intelligence will supply them with rich and meaningful context across the entire incident management cycle and help to identify cyber risks on time. If companies lack qualified InfoSec professionals, adopt a managed security service such as Kaspersky Managed Detection and Response. It will provide the necessary expertise and give them the best possible advanced automated security services. To gain more insights about IT security costs and budgets in businesses visit the interactive IT Security Calculator. To read the full report “IT Security Economics”, visit the website.