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Breach Recovery Costs More in Virtual Environments

 
 
By Gina Roos  |  Posted 2015-08-31
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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    1 - Breach Recovery Costs More in Virtual Environments
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    Breach Recovery Costs More in Virtual Environments

    Security breaches on virtual environments cost enterprises more than those on physical environments and lead to the added cost of hiring outside experts.
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    2 - High Virtualization Usage
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    High Virtualization Usage

    62% of businesses use virtualization in one form or another.
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    3 - Twice the Cost
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    Twice the Cost

    Businesses pay twice as much to recover from a security breach using a virtual infrastructure.
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    4 - Average Recovery Cost for Large Enterprises
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    Average Recovery Cost for Large Enterprises

    Large enterprises spend more than $800,000 on recovery with virtualization and nearly $406,000 without virtualization.
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    5 - Average Recovery Cost for SMBs
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    Average Recovery Cost for SMBs

    The average direct cost of recovery for SMBs is close to $60,000 per incident when virtualization is involved, and nearly $27,000 per incident without virtualization.
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    6 - Reasons for Higher Cost
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    Reasons for Higher Cost

    Security complexity, businesses needing to improve their understanding of risks specific to virtual environments and extensive use of virtual infrastructure for mission-critical operations are the three reasons listed for a cost increase.
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    7 - Top Virtualization Platforms
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    Top Virtualization Platforms

    40% of businesses use VMWare, followed by Microsoft (36%) and Citrix (9%). Only 9% of businesses use open-source virtualization platforms: Xen (6%) and KVM (3%).
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    8 - Future Adoption
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    Future Adoption

    Virtualization platforms that companies are likely to adopt in the next two years include XenServer (17%), Microsoft Hyper-V (16%), a KVM-based commercial platform like RHEV (15%), a KVM-based open-source platform like oVert (14%), VMware (e.g., vSphere) (13%) and Xen (12%).
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    9 - Virtual Safety
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    Virtual Safety

    42% of businesses think virtual environments are safer than physical ones, and only 53% are highly concerned about the security of virtualized environments.
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    10 - Dealing With Risk
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    Dealing With Risk

    56% of businesses said they are fully prepared to mitigate and deal with the security risks to their virtualized infrastructure.
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    11 - Lack of Awareness
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    Lack of Awareness

    73% of businesses do not make use of specialized IT security solutions for virtual environments, and 34% aren't aware of the performance benefits of these solutions.
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    12 - Specialized Security
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    Specialized Security

    Of those using specialized IT security methods, 48% use agent-based solutions, followed by agentless (35%) and light-agent approaches (13%).
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    13 - Security Impact Involving Virtual Infrastructure
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    Security Impact Involving Virtual Infrastructure

    The biggest consequences of a security breach involving virtual infrastructure include temporary loss of access to business-critical information (66%), loss of credibility/damage to company reputation (48%), temporary loss of the ability to trade (47%) and loss of contracts/business opportunities (43%).
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    14 - Security Impact Involving Physical Infrastructure
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    Security Impact Involving Physical Infrastructure

    The biggest consequences of a security breach not involving physical infrastructure includes temporary loss of access to business-critical information (36%), loss of credibility/damage to company reputation (23%), temporary loss of the ability to trade (22%) and loss of contracts/business opportunities (21%).
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    15 - Recovery Measures for Virtual Infrastructure
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    Recovery Measures for Virtual Infrastructure

    The top recovery measures from a security breach that affects virtual infrastructure include IT security consultants (79%), risk management consultants (58%), lawyers/solicitors (56%), management consultants (51%) and auditors/accountants (49%).
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    16 - Recovery Measures for Physical Infrastructure
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    Recovery Measures for Physical Infrastructure

    The top recovery measures from a security breach that affects physical infrastructure include IT security consultants (64%), risk management consultants (33%), physical security consultants (27%), auditors/accountants (26%) and management consultants (23%).
 

Businesses pay nearly double to recover from a security breach if a virtual infrastructure is affected during a cyber-attack, according to a new survey of 5,500 companies released by security specialist Kaspersky Lab in cooperation with market research firm B2B International. It doesn't matter if the company is a large enterprise or a small and midsize business (SMB)—recovering from a security breach involving a virtual infrastructure will result in much higher costs than a security breach in a physical infrastructure. Kaspersky Lab attributes the higher cost to the majority of businesses using virtual environments for their most critical business processes. Security breaches in virtual environments also require additional cost for third-party expertise. Also, many businesses believe that security risks are lower in virtual environments and, often, don't deploy security solutions designed for virtual environments. This opens up opportunities for service providers to help their customers lower their overall risks in virtual environments through education and new solutions. Here are 15 reasons why this is vital.