Kaspersky UK channel boss on the opportunities for security providers post-COVID-19

Andy Bogdan foresees opportunities for cybersecurity market in a post-pandemic world

The majority of businesses will implement working remotely as their default policy, leading to a wide range of opportunities for security providers, according to Kaspersky's UK channel boss.

Andy Bogdan told CRN that he envisions remote working practices becoming the new normal for up to 60 per cent of businesses post-pandemic.

"I believe 50 to 60 per cent of businesses will now start working remotely, so the security opportunity for the channel is around how can we as a community help businesses now redefine their business, reorganise their organisation to be working more remotely - that's where I see a big opportunity," he stated.

"A lot of companies will be thinking ‘There's more productivity now than we've ever had in our operations, we're having less impact on our carbon footprint, we've reduced our operational costs significantly and we're actually helping the environment - could we be doing more of this?'"

He added that any long-term pivot to remote working will present a "massive" security problem to organisations, leading to further opportunities for cybersecurity specialists.

"The reality is that most homes aren't ready for it, so there's opportunity there, but whichever way you want to look there's a changing dynamic," he said.

"All of a sudden, not only are you now moving traditional business outside of the perimeter, you're now moving into arguably the most exposed and vulnerable environment on the planet today. Over 85 per cent of the threat starts in the wild - probably the easiest place to get into any corporate network is through a person's home."

Future security opportunities will also crop up in the public sector which is facing "big challenges" with vulnerability exposure, as well as in the cloud which will drive security-as-a-service, Bogdan added

"There's going to be a big need and drive for security vendors to not only offer and support with their expertise but also to help make the general public sector a lot safer to continue operating," he said.

"There was a stat a couple of years ago that the UK was sixth [globally] with regards to cloud adoption. Well, this is going to change absolutely over the next few months. I think it's going to really drive the behaviour of security as a service, not just for Kaspersky, but for security in general."

The vendor recently inked a deal with VAD Infinigate to deliver its products in the UK, a relationship that has also seen it add the distie as a partner in countries across Europe.

Bogdan calls the negotiations around securing Infinigate as his "second milestone" since taking on the role of UK channel boss in January 2019, the first being to rebuild channel relationships and recruit new team members.

He pursued the Infinigate partnership after assessing the current distribution landscape and Kaspersky's own developing portfolio.

"I had in excess of 17 years of experience when I joined Kaspersky in 2016 and I had seen a lot of changes," he noted.

"But coming into Kaspersky, I saw that distribution had been in place for some time and there hadn't really been any assessment of the distribution landscape. And the landscape is continuing to change," he noted.

He said that despite Infinigate's relative youth in the UK, it has some "key attributes" that made it an attractive partner, listing its innovation, diversity, the speciality of its vendor partners and its acmeo offering as some of its alluring factors.

"The Kaspersky brand and heritage isn't necessarily known as much in the UK as it is on the continent or globally, but we are a very intuitive organisation - so that worked hand-in-hand [with Infinigate]," said Bogdan.

"But the real reason for me is their involvement and their investment into the service provider market. We are changing rapidly in the world of services; even when we look at things like endpoint today - two or three years ago, everyone said endpoint was dead, yet it has never been more prevalent than it is today.

"But more importantly, it's about the partners out there wanting to be able to offer managed security services, so we need to be working with distributors who can get it out there to the masses, and in particular, to that services space."