Lack of updates opens door to online attacks

Nearly half of Romanian users are exposed to online threats through mere negligence and ignorance of the importance of updates, says Teodor Cimpoesu, managing director of Kaspersky Lab Romania and Bulgaria. This failure to update the programs on their computers makes them more vulnerable to attacks.

Otilia Haraga

What are the most important malware threats faced by Romanian users?
Recently, Kaspersky Lab rang the alarm that nearly half of the Romanian users do not update the programs installed on their computer, even though they use free software. Their PCs become vulnerable to online attacks that exploit security weaknesses in old software versions. For example, 47.7 percent of the personal computers in Romania are vulnerable to informatic threats because they do not have the latest version of Winamp. All the media player formats older than the 5.621 version allow a potential hacker to access the victim’s computer remotely.

Talking strictly about viruses, center stage is the Duqu Trojan, whose many similarities to the Stuxnet worm (created for industrial espionage and sabotaging Iran’s nuclear program) indicate either that these two types of malware were created by the same group, or that the source of the code used for Stuxnet, which has not been made public, was used by another group of cyber criminals.

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To spread, Duqu exploits a Microsoft vulnerability, identified in Windows’ system of fonts – Win32k TrueType – and affects a variety of office type programs (text editors). We recommend clients use an advanced security solution and install all the security updates distributed automatically by Microsoft.

What is Kaspersky Lab’s strategy in Romania next year?
We will continue to count very much on our products, the most recent examples of which are Kaspersky Endpoint Security 8 for Windows, the endpoint security solution for companies, and Kaspersky Security Center 9, the administration console used for the configuration of the solution.

Recently, we have begun collaborating with our partner RHS Company on a program for retail that involves small and medium IT stores which tend to be ignored during this period. Many firms have focused on the online or on large retail chains, but these small stores still exist, have loyal customers, and have the service at hand.

We will also focus on supporting our partners. In Romania, Kaspersky Lab has approximately 700 partners and sub-distributors for its consumer and business security solutions. Kaspersky Lab is a 100 percent independent vendor that defined its position on the market of security solutions via partners, so the main strategic lines in 2012 will continue to be in this direction.

What is the company’s local market share?
Kaspersky Lab has an estimated share of approximately 20 percent of the Romanian endpoint security solutions market. We are optimistic and believe we will be able to add a few more percentage points to our market share by the end of the year. This is because I am counting a great deal on the new endpoint business solution Kaspersky Endpoint Security 8 for Windows, launched in October, which combines local security technologies with the cloud.

What revenues do you estimate the firm will post this year?
We cannot disclose revenue figures. However, I can tell you that 2010 was a very good year with more than 40 percent growth in revenues compared to 2009. This year we expect to repeat the same result. In 2011, the most popular security solutions for individual users were Kaspersky Internet Security 2012 and Kaspersky PURE Total Security. For companies, the Kaspersky Open Space Security solution was the best seller. At the moment, the weight of business clients is approximately equal to that of individual users, about 50-50.

What percentage of your sales come from the online store?
In 2008, when we launched the online store, we did not see it as the main way to boost sales because the focus was to develop and support a strong network of partners. These partners, in turn, sell both via their online stores, and in retail. The ratio of sales via the Kaspersky Lab Romania online store is under 5 percent.

otilia.haraga@business-review.ro