Trend Micro Incorporated, a global cybersecurity leader, today revealed that the risk of cyber attacks has increased in the last year. According to a new survey, 73% of organizations in Malaysia report they are likely to experience a data breach that impacts customer data in the next 12 months.
The findings come from Trend Micro’s biannual Cyber Risk Index (CRI) report, which measures the gap between respondents’ cybersecurity preparedness versus their likelihood of being attacked. In the first half of 2021 the CRI surveyed more than 3,600 businesses of all sizes and industries across Asia-Pacific, North America, Europe, and Latin America.
The CRI is based on a numerical scale of -10 to 10, with -10 representing the highest level of risk. The current index for Malaysia stands at 0.08, which indicates a moderate risk.
“Once again we’ve found plenty to keep CISOs awake at night, from operational and infrastructure risks to data protection, threat activity and human-shaped challenges,” said Goh Chee Hoh, Managing Director for Trend Micro Malaysia and Nascent Countries. “To lower cyber risk, organizations must be better prepared by going back to basics, identifying the critical data most at risk, focusing on the threats that matter most to their business, and delivering multi-layered protection from comprehensive, connected platforms.”
Key findings for Malaysia from the report include:
- 58% said it was somewhat to very likely that they’d suffer serious cyber attacks in the next 12 months
- 30% suffered more than 7 cyber attacks that infiltrated networks/systems
- 14% had more than 7 data breaches of information assets
- 21% suffered more than 7 breaches of customer data over the past year
“Trend Micro’s CRI continues to be a helpful tool to help companies better understand their cyber risk,” said Dr. Larry Ponemon, CEO for the Ponemon Institute. “Businesses globally can use this resource to prioritize their security strategy and focus their resources to best manage their cyber risk. This type of resource is increasingly useful as harmful security incidents continue to be a challenge for businesses of all sizes and industries.”
In Asia-Pacific (APAC), the top five cyber threats highlighted in the report were as follows:
- Ransomware
- Watering hole attacks
- Advanced persistent threats (APT)
- Malicious insiders
- Fileless attack
APAC organizations also ranked the top three negative consequences of an attack as disruption or damages to critical infrastructure, lost intellectual property, and cost of outside consultants and experts.
The top security risks to infrastructure include malicious and negligent insiders, cloud computing infrastructure and providers, along with organizational misalignment and complexity.
The main challenges for cybersecurity preparedness include limitations for security leaders who lack the authority and resources to achieve a strong security posture, as well as organizations struggling to enable security technologies that are sufficient to protect their data assets and IT infrastructure.
24 August 2021
