KUALA LUMPUR: Trend Micro Incorporated revealed that the risk of cyber attacks has increased in the last year. According to a new survey, 73 per cent of organisations in Malaysia report they are likely to experience a data breach that impacts customer data in the next 12 months.
"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 Trend Micro Malaysia and Nascent Countries' managing director, Goh Chee Hoh.
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.
"To lower cyber risk, organisations 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 per cent of respondents said it was somewhat to very likely that they would suffer serious cyber attacks in the next 12 months with 30 per cent have said they have suffered more than seven cyber attacks that infiltrated networks/systems, 14 per cent had more than seven data breaches of information assets, and 21 per cent suffered more than seven breaches of customer data over the past year.
The report also highlighted the top five cyber threats in Asia-Pacific (APAC) as ransomware, watering hole attacks, advanced persistent threats (APT), malicious insiders, and fileless attacks.
APAC organisations also ranked the top three negative consequences of an attack as disruption or damage 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 organisational 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 organisations struggling to enable security technologies that are sufficient to protect their data assets and IT infrastructure.
"Trend Micro's CRI continues to be a helpful tool to help companies better understand their cyber risk. Businesses globally can use this resource to prioritise 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," Ponemon Institute's chief executive officer, Dr Larry Ponemon.