Woburn, MA – October 24, 2022 — Insights from Kaspersky’s latest report reveals 15% of companies in the U.S. with 50 to 999 employees are ready to use pirated alternatives of business software to decrease IT spending. Among small businesses (less than 50 employees), only 5% are ready to take this step. Taking such measures would be detrimental to corporate cyber safety, as adversaries actively distribute malicious files under the guise of most used software.
As a cybersecurity solution provider, it is important to explore which crisis management tactics business leaders find most successful, and how some steps can seriously affect a company’s cyber resilience. Safe measures such as seeking lower-cost contractors and adopting free alternatives of usual software are most popular (34%), but 18% of surveyed business leaders would replace their software with a pirated version to cut costs.
As for the type of programs, respondents believe they could replace them with hacked copies, the majority chose project management, marketing and sales software, with 33% even agreeing to use a pirated cybersecurity software.
“A lack of resources is a common situation for small and medium businesses, but use of a pirated or hacked software should be completely excluded if an organization values its safety, reputation and income,” said Alexander Shlychkov, product marketing lead at Kaspersky. “Pirated copies of software usually come with Trojans and miners and do not contain the fixes or patches released by developers to close vulnerabilities that might be exploited by cybercriminals. Official free alternatives are much better options for those who need to save money on IT.”
To avoid data leakage and financial losses caused by infected software installation, implement the following Kaspersky’s recommendations:
More recommendations on how to protect your business with a limited budget are available on Kaspersky’s dedicated Low Budget Hub.
The full report and more insights on small and medium businesses crisis tactics are available via the report.
Kaspersky is a global cybersecurity company founded in 1997. Kaspersky’s deep threat intelligence and security expertise is constantly transforming into innovative security solutions and services to protect businesses, critical infrastructure, governments and consumers around the globe. The company’s comprehensive security portfolio includes leading endpoint protection and a number of specialized security solutions and services to fight sophisticated and evolving digital threats. Over 400 million users are protected by Kaspersky technologies and we help 240,000 corporate clients protect what matters most to them. Learn more at usa.kaspersky.com.
Cassandra Faro
Cassandra.Faro@Kaspersky.com
781-503-1812