Kaspersky’s IT Security Calculator reveals budgets lower than average in 45% of SMBs and 50% of enterprises

Data released by the Kaspersky IT Security Calculator shows that budgets at 45 percent of SMBs and 50 percent of enterprises are below the average spend at US$205,000 for small to medium, and $8 million for enterprise businesses. This is despite a Gartner report announcing cybersecurity spending is growing year-on-year with almost 9 percent growth this year.

The Kaspersky IT Security Calculator is a free web tool that allows IT security managers to view the average budget for cybersecurity in their region and industry, as well as to compare budgets within their organization. The tool is becoming increasingly important as it allows companies to understand their position in the market and also gives them the ability to compare their budget with competitors and improve planning.

Globally, IT security budgets are demonstrating positive dynamics with a number of analyst reports showing that budgets continue to grow year over year. 

Kaspersky’s own survey of almost five thousand organizations across the world confirms this trend with 70 percent of respondents showing they expect their IT security budget to increase in the next three years. However, statistics from usage of the Kaspersky IT Security Calculator in October 2018- 2019 revealed that some businesses are not keeping up with this trend, as their IT security spending is lower than average.

Overall, budgets for SMBs were reviewed more actively (46 percent) than for enterprises (38 percent) and very small companies (16 percent). For small and medium businesses, the budget issue proves to be complicated as it’s not only about finances but also the alignment of the budget planning process. Another challenge to consider is the demands on human resources to hire experts in relevant cybersecurity risks and the protection methods needed for different business services.

“Budget planning is a very important process for companies to carefully consider as the proper investments ensure a company is ready to meet current cybersecurity challenges and threats,” said Sergey Martsynkyan, head of B2B product marketing at Kaspersky. “Though it may be a complex task which demands a deep understanding of business needs towards cybersecurity, it is important to understand how to address them and how much it can cost. At Kaspersky, we do our best to give organizations insights to help them with this process. Along with the report on IT security economics we prepare annually, the IT Security Calculator gives a glance on average cybersecurity spending as well as specific threats and advice on protection measures.”

The Kaspersky IT Security Calculator website with threat statistics and recommended protection is available, and free to use.

Toshiba advances next generation ADAS that uses Cypress Semper fail-safe storage

Cypress Semiconductor announced Wednesday that Toshiba Electronic Devices & Storage Corporation has selected Cypress’ Semper NOR Flash for its next-generation Visconti line of automotive Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS). 

Architected with an embedded Arm Cortex-M0 processing core, the Semper family is purpose-built for demanding automotive environments where high-density and functional safety compliance are required. The Toshiba Visconti ADAS SoC is specifically targeted for key automobile makers working toward Autonomous Driving level 2.

The Cypress Semper NOR Flash family leads the industry in Functional Safety compliance and was the first flash to be designed specifically to meet the ISO26262 automotive functional safety standard, reaching ASIL-B compliancy. 

Semper NOR Flash also supports automotive temperatures up to +125°C (AEC-Q100 Grade 1) and meets the density and performance requirements for storage in ADAS applications through Autonomous Driving level 5.

“For the Toshiba Visconti5 ADAS SoC, it is critical that the integrated components selected for the design are field-proven, built to the highest standards of safety and reliability, and will have the endurance required for advanced ADAS applications,” said Takeshi Sugahara, Technology Executive of Toshiba Electronic Devices & Storage Corporation. “Cypress’ fail-safe storage solutions are a key to enable our Visconti5 platform to exceed our customers’ expectations and requirements for next-generation automotive designs.”

“Cypress is proud of its success in providing the world’s most advanced and reliable fail-safe storage products with integrated compute core and functional safety for automotive applications,” said Amr El-Ashmawi, vice president of marketing, Memory Products Division at Cypress. “As the world’s number one market share provider of automotive-grade flash, we look forward to continuing our collaborative work with Toshiba for delivering next-generation ADAS systems in this growing segment of the automotive market.”

Kaspersky predicts advanced persistent threats in 2020, with abuse of personal information, sophisticated attacks leading the pack

Kaspersky researchers have shared their predictions on Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs) in 2020, pointing out some of the ways the landscape of targeted attacks could change in the coming months. 

The overall trend shows that threats will grow in sophistication and become more targeted, diversifying under the influence of external factors, such as the development and propagation of machine learning, technologies for deepfake development, and tensions around trade routes between Asia and Europe.

The predictions were developed based on changes that the Global Research and Analysis Team witnessed over 2019, and are an effort to help the cybersecurity community prepare for the challenges that lie ahead in the coming year.

Other targeted threat predictions for 2020 include false flag attacks reach a whole new level. These attacks will develop further, with threat actors seeking not only to avoid attribution but also to actively lay the blame on someone else. Commodity malware, scripts, publicly available security tools and administrator software, mixed with a couple of false flags, where security researchers are hungry for any small clue, might be enough to divert suspected authorship to someone else.

Attackers will focus more on organizations that are likely to make substantial payments in order to recover their data. A potential twist might be that, instead of making files unrecoverable, threat actors will threaten to publish data that they have stolen from the victim company. As banks will be required to open their infrastructure and data to third parties who wish to provide services to bank customers, it is likely that attackers will seek to abuse these new mechanisms with new fraudulent schemes.

Determined threat actors have, for some time, been extending their toolsets beyond Windows, and even beyond PC systems. VPNFilter and Slingshot, for example, targeted networking hardware. New attacks could hit regions including Turkey, East and South Europe and East Africa. Possible scenarios include a growth in political espionage as governments seek to secure their interests at home and abroad. They could extend also to technological espionage in situations of economic crisis and instability.

With new interception capabilities and data exfiltration methods, use of supply chains will continue to be one of the most difficult delivery methods to address. It is likely that attackers will continue to expand this method through manipulated software containers, for example, and abuse of packages and libraries.

There are no good reasons to think this will stop any time soon. However, due to the increased attention given to this subject by the security community, the number of attacks being identified and analyzed in detail will also increase.

Personal information abuse grows, armed with AI. It is very similar to some of the techniques used for driving election advertisements through social media. This technology is already in use and it is just a matter of time before some attackers take advantage of it.

“The future holds so many possibilities that there are likely to be things that are not included in our predictions. The extent and complexity of the environments in which attacks play out offer so many possibilities,” said said Vicente Diaz, security researcher at Kaspersky. “In addition, no single threat research team has complete visibility of the operations of APT threat actors. We will continue to try and anticipate the activities of APT groups and understand the methods they employ, while providing insights into their campaigns and the impact they have.”

Forrester releases 2020 predictions, with recessionary fears and global sociopolitical uncertainty making it to the list

Forrester’s 2020 predictions identify key market dynamics that will impact companies’ growth in the coming year. 2020 will be the year that moves leaders’ attention to adaptability: the ability to understand and anticipate market dynamics — and rapidly exploit opportunities, both big and small.

Factors including heightened values-based consumer activism; the lack of clarity around Brexit; automation, artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics moving deeper into the organization; and recessionary fears due to sociopolitical uncertainty will make 2020 a raucous year, forcing leaders to embrace adaptability.

In 2020, Forrester predicts that consumers will search for deeper meaning. Companies will pay careful attention to authenticity, both in the values they choose to express and how they express them. CMOs will rally around customer value. To establish a successful ecosystem, CMOs will thread the needle between employee experience, customer experience, brand purpose, creative, and technology, imbuing all these crucial areas with customer obsession.

The year ahead will see CIOs focusing on people. Smart CIOs will become a trusted advisor and partner to employee experience and HR teams to help with changing workforce dynamics, including working with new emerging technologies or interacting with robots. Immersive, adaptive IT will take hold. IT will follow the broader organizational future of matrixed, shape-shifting organizations that form and morph to changing priorities.

2020 will see customer experience continuing to bifurcate. Firms that have made the least headway will cut their programs in frustration. Meanwhile, companies that have started realizing the benefits of CX will double-down, simultaneously shoring up their fundamentals and innovating. Advanced firms will double their data strategy budget. 2020 will be a wake-up year for many, as the total cost of getting data wrong will become apparent. Data and AI will get weaponized. In 2020, ransomware incidents will grow as attackers learn that holding data hostage is a quick path to monetization.

Group-targeted experiences will supplant personalization. Marketers will move away from laborious and often-unwanted personalization efforts. Instead, they’ll seek to authentically connect with customers through group-targeted experiences. Automation will reshape the workforce. Automation will change the composition of the job market and raise global economic issues of income distribution and wage stagnation.

Regulation will make and break markets. Regulatory bodies will gain steam — impacting and shaping markets, in a very real way, in 2020. For VCs, profitability will become the new unicorn. In 2020, venture capitalists will increase their scrutiny of startups.