Security Motivations for Cost-Constrained IT Budgets

In addition to budget constraints, the Non-Profit/Charity and Education sectors also rely on their IT security measures to protect huge amounts of personal data they store, making any under-equipped IT departments particularly vulnerable to data theft. Charities in particular rely heavily on donations, so maintaining their reputations for securely managing the personal and financial information of their donors is paramount.

According to Kaspersky Lab’s survey, 63 percent of non-profits and charities said damage to their credibility would be the worst potential consequence of a data breach. When asked what type of data they most feared losing, 41 percent of non-profits and charities cited their client and donor information, a rate that was far higher than any other business sector.

Educators placed similar importance on their reputation, ranking damaged reputation as their second most feared consequence of a data breach, with 44 percent of respondents citing this outcome. (This consequence was only slightly behind their top concern of losing access to critical information, cited by 48 percent of respondents.)  Educators also agreed that their client information – in this case, the information of students and faculty – is the data they most fear losing, cited by 21 percent of respondents.

Given their budget constraints and sensitivities to data breaches, the cost of an IT security incident would be particularly painful to these education and non-profit organizations. This is what makes the low consideration given to virtualization security particularly troubling. A lack of awareness and understanding of virtualization security is hardly unique to these sectors, however. Kaspersky Lab has previously reported that a large portion of IT professionals lack a strong understanding of virtualization security. The survey found at least one-quarter of all IT professionals had “no understanding” or “a weak understanding” of their virtualization security options. Virtual IT network can produce huge cost-savings for resource-strapped organizations, but could also create a window for cyber threats if not properly secured. As more schools, charities and non-profits slowly begin implementing virtual IT resources, we hope their prioritization of virtual security will also rise from its present low rates.

Information about Kaspersky Security for Virtualization, as well as a number of resources to help explain different styles of virtualization security, can be found in Kaspersky Lab’s business center. Also, more data around business trends and usage of virtualization and virtualization security identified by Kaspersky Lab’s global survey can be found in Kaspersky Lab’s 2014 IT Security Risks for Virtualization summary report.

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