More than three quarters (75%) of geo-distributed companies using container development methods experienced cybersecurity incidents in the last 12 months according to the latest Kaspersky study. These organizations, who used containers and/ or Kubernetes, faced a wide range of cyber incidents with catastrophic results including confidential data leaks (40%), financial losses (40%), and decreased customer trust (67%).
In its latest study[1] titled “Managing geographically distributed businesses: challenges and solutions”, Kaspersky gathered the opinions of IT Security, Information Security professionals, and C-level decision makers working for geo-distributed companies regarding network security challenges in building and maintaining multi-site infrastructure. The study also highlights the problems these organizations face when operating in hybrid cloud and containerized environments.
The vast majority (90%) of the companies with multi-site networks participating in the study, had in-house IT development teams, with 75% of them using a container development method. Of those using container methods, 75% reported experiencing cybersecurity incidents related to containers and/ or Kubernetes in the last 12 months.
The consequences of the cyber incidents experienced by these companies were severe: 40% of them led to confidential data leaks, 40% caused financial losses, and 67% resulted in the loss of customer trust. Respondents reported the primary reasons for the attacks were errors in configurations (20%), flaws in runtime security process (22%), and late detection of malware in containers (35%).
“Cybersecurity incidents related to containers and Kubernetes present significant challenges for geo-distributed companies. The findings from our study underscore the critical importance of implementing robust security measures to safeguard against confidential data leaks and other cyberthreats in hybrid cloud and containerized environments. As organizations continue to expand their digital footprint, proactive security measures are essential to mitigate risks and maintain customer trust.” – Timofey Titkov, Head of Cloud & Network Security Product Line, Kaspersky
The full report with more findings on the challenges facing geo-distributed companies is available via this link.
To protect containerized environments, Kaspersky recommends:
- Use specialized solutions for container security, such as Kaspersky Container Security, designed to ensure security across all stages of containerized application development. This can serve as the initial step in implementing complex DevOps and cloud security solutions, like the forthcoming Kaspersky Cloud Workload Security. The ecosystem provides customers’ cloud infrastructure with comprehensive protection covering hosts, virtual machines, instances in clouds, containers and Kubernetes. Additionally, it reduces costs and resource consumption.
[1] Kaspersky questioned 1,000 respondents from 20 countries for this research: Brazil, Chile, Columbia, Mexico, USA, France, Germany, the UK, Spain, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Russia, Singapore, China, Japan, India, Indonesia, Malaysia.
