The update enables small and medium-sized businesses to augment their defenses with purpose-built Security Modules – Security Awareness, Email Security, Workload Security, Threat Lookup & Analysis and Vulnerability Management – extending protection without redesigning the existing technology stack.
As small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) grow, they face an increasingly diverse range of cybersecurity threats. A recent survey conducted by Kaspersky’s internal research center found that the most common external incidents affecting SMBs over the past year were phishing (20%) and software-vulnerability exploits (17%).
At the same time, the leading reasons organizations switch cybersecurity vendors often stem from internal challenges. Twenty-six percent cited compatibility and integration problems with their existing solutions, while 23% said they needed to consolidate multiple security products onto a single platform.
The findings highlight how emerging security needs across email, employees, workloads, and vulnerabilities are prompting SMBs to seek simpler, unified cybersecurity solutions that can streamline processes and reduce unnecessary complexity.
To address these needs, Kaspersky Next Optimum is introducing new Security Modules, allowing customers to strengthen specific areas of risk step by step while adding only the capabilities most relevant to their businesses and keeping security management manageable.
New Security Modules for Kaspersky Next Optimum
Kaspersky Next Optimum now offers a suite of Security Modules designed to help SMBs reinforce critical risk areas without requiring them to replace their existing technology stack or introduce unnecessary complexity.
The endpoint remains the foundation, while the new modules extend protection beyond individual devices by adding control points designed to help stop threats earlier in the attack chain.
Each module is built around real-world business requirements, taking into consideration operational constraints, the evolving threat landscape, and specific growth objectives. This approach allows SMBs to deploy the tools they need for the scenarios most relevant to them while keeping management overhead to a minimum.
New Security Modules include:
- Security Awareness – Helps reduce risks associated with phishing, social engineering, and user error, particularly for growing organizations with limited cybersecurity awareness.
- Email Security – Blocks email-borne threats before they reach users, improves visibility across email infrastructure, and helps safeguard sensitive communications.
- Workload Security – Protects hybrid-cloud environments with essential security controls, making it particularly suited to organizations migrating to the cloud or rapidly expanding their digital infrastructure.
- Threat Lookup & Analysis – Speeds up incident response through deeper analysis of suspicious files, enriched investigations, and expert insights for threat-hunting activities.
- Vulnerability Management – Simplifies the identification and remediation of vulnerabilities across the entire IT estate, particularly important for rapidly growing or distributed environments where complete visibility can be difficult to maintain.
By combining these purpose-built modules with the core endpoint, EDR, XDR, and MXDR capabilities of Kaspersky Next Optimum, companies gain a flexible and scalable security posture that extends protection beyond the endpoint.
The approach is designed to help organizations address threats before they reach devices, exploit vulnerabilities, or compromise accounts, while maintaining focused protection around the areas that matter most.
Simulated Phishing Campaigns and Compromised Credential Insights
Kaspersky Next Optimum is also expanding its protection capabilities with built-in simulated phishing campaigns and compromised-credential insights.
The simulated phishing campaigns functionality was previously available only in Kaspersky’s most advanced solutions, Kaspersky Next XDR Optimum and Kaspersky Next MXDR Optimum. Responding to strong customer demand, the capability is now included in Kaspersky Next EDR Foundations.
With pre-configured phishing templates, administrators can run realistic phishing simulations, assess user readiness, identify knowledge gaps, and pinpoint vulnerable processes.
Automated reporting can then help track training requirements and improvements in security awareness over time.
Meanwhile, Kaspersky Next MXDR Optimum introduces expert-driven threat hunting powered by Kaspersky Digital Footprint Intelligence.
By correlating leaked credentials with alerts and suspicious authentication attempts, the solution can help identify potential account compromises earlier, prioritize incidents more effectively, and provide broader visibility into account-related risks.
Based on customer feedback, the managed protection experience has also been enhanced. Core management capabilities are now optimized for mobile devices and tablets, while incident notifications delivered through Telegram include the incident priority, affected assets, recommendations, and a direct link to the incident.
Flexible Management That Scales With the Business
Companies can now begin managing their infrastructure through the optimized, time-saving Pro View Console and seamlessly transition to the more granular Expert View Console as their needs evolve—without having to redesign their entire security approach.
This enables organizations to start with essential capabilities and expand their management tools as their businesses become more complex.
“In today’s rapidly-growing SMB environment, the attack surface expands faster than security budgets and resources. Kaspersky Next Optimum’s Security Modules let organizations reinforce exactly the risk areas that matter, whether it’s phishing awareness or email protection, without redesigning the existing technology stack or interrupting daily operations. This flexibility eliminates the traditional cost and complexity barriers to reliable protection for small and medium-sized businesses,” said Ilya Markelov, Head of Unified Platform Product Line at Kaspersky.
To learn more about Kaspersky Next Optimum, visit Kaspersky Next.
