45% of New Zealand-based Companies At Risks, Not Ready for CyberSecurity Challenges

HP New Zealand IT Security has publicly revealed that 45% of New Zealand’s companies are not ready to face the security challenges, as they are using ineffective endpoint protection software, especially with the growth of telecommuting. In their study, only 50% of the firms are satisfactorily ready in an event of IT security troubles.

The study was conducted by HP with 434 New Zealand-based companies, they occupy all the categories with regards to the size of business establishment, from Small & Medium Enterprises to Multinational corporations. They are also representing many industries from logistics, distribution, education, healthcare, services, and production.

Identifying the weakness of New Zealand-based company are needed for both the government and the private sector to help each other in the form of incident management and policy-making which can lower the cases of a company getting hacked or phished.

“The consequences of a data breach are severe; from financial to brand and reputation damage. Organizations need to be vigilant about implementing processes that regularly monitor, detect and report data breaches. Running regular risk assessments and managing your endpoint security is critical in keeping businesses data safe,” explained Grant Hopkins, HP New Zealand’s Managing Director.

Like the rest of the world, New Zealand has been experiencing an enormous growth of the use of technology, the mobile device revolution brought about by Android and iOS and the birth of Internet-of-Things. To add to the complexity is the fact that not all companies in the country that allows telecommuting use a secure platform for remote connection. Only 42% of telecommunity-enabled companies have an adequate system for secure connection, like using mainstream VPN solutions.

Being a printer company, HP is also interested in how secure the printers installed in New Zealand, and in 65% have somewhat lack enough security procedures in order to prevent vulnerability exploits.

Printers that have an old version of firmware are a gateway for introducing insecurity to an otherwise secure network. “Endpoint security – at the device level – is critical. Organizations tend to rely solely on third-party software security to protect their devices when, in reality, stronger and better business security must be integrated into the device itself. With hackers able to bypass traditional network perimeter security and antivirus programs, it’s time to scrutinize a hardware’s security as closely, if not more, than our external security solutions,” added Hopkins.

Any reputable vendor issues regular firmware upgrades to printers and other non-PC devices. System administrators are advised to install these firmware upgrades, as an unpatched printer makes a 24/7 opening for outsiders to access the networking, using the printer’s network connection as a sort of gateway device. Some newer models of corporate printers have an automatic firmware upgrade system that is enabled by default, it will be a good feature to have for their next corporate printer purchase.