One in three industrial companies encounter regular network problems, with 45% of businesses experiencing them a few times a month, while only 12% of respondents stated they face such challenges once a year or less.
These were the concerning findings highlighted by Kaspersky in its report, which investigating the network and information security challenges faced by geo-distributed companies
Industrial companies usually operate usinga geographically distributed infrastructure with factories, branch offices and other critical facilitieslocated in different sites. This peculiarity can lead to a series of problems such as logistical issues, communication barriers, difficulties in coordinating operations, maintaining consistent quality standards and ensuring compliance with local regulations.
Industrial enterprises with multiple locations also regularly face IT infrastructure and information security issues. According to the Kaspersky report titled ‘Managing geographically distributed businesses: challenges and solutions’, 49% of manufacturing companies found the effective detection and resolution of cybersecurity incidentswasthe most challenging task.They also cited monitoring the implementation of security measures (46%) and building a cohesive security policy (42%) as significant difficulties.
Almost 30% of respondents said that theyregularly experienced network problemssuch as network failures or outages, poor performance of services and applications, and inadequate connection capacity. Thirty-eight percent of them encountered such challenges one to three times a month, while 28% faced them every couple of months, and 7% even experienced them every week.
Regarding the time required to restore the network after a failure or an outage, the majority of respondents (74%) said they usually needed between one and five hours, while 15% said they spent no more than 1 hour, and 10% required up to one full working day. Down times like these lead to significant financial and reputational damage and can cost thousands of dollars per minute and even more per hour. Therefore, it’s important for companies to prevent possible network interruptions and they should be capable of repairing them rapidly if they arise.
