IN today's interconnected world, cybersecurity has become a critical concern for nations. Asean countries, for example, with their rapidly growing digital economies and expanding online presence, face increasing cyberthreats.
To effectively address these challenges and build a robust cybersecurity environment, partnerships and collaborations are essential.
According to the United Kingdom's Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) cyberpolicy lead for the Indo-Pacific, Henry Carver, cybersecurity has become a global challenge.
"The whole world has been more reliant on digitalisation since the Covid-19 pandemic. More and more technology and the way we live are moving online. Just as it's true for every citizen, it's also true for government services, and its critical infrastructure. As a result, we have a larger footprint, which means we have a greater surface area where cybercriminals and people with malicious intentions can come in and pursue their objectives," he said.
"It's a huge challenge as cyberthreats are growing in complexity and severity as well as frequency, and this issue is faced by the whole world, Malaysia too."
Carver, who was one of the guest speakers at the recent CYDES Cyber Security Conference in Kuala Lumpur, said the cyberspace was where most of human interactions happen.
"There are a lot of new technology coming online such as AI (artificial intelligence) and the growth of 5G, and these provide a new opportunity for these threats to come in.
"So Malaysia is certainly not on its own in recognising the challenges and what we are seeing in all the countries that we are helping to put measures in place. It's always been a battle trying to keep up with the strength of these cybercriminals or people trying to threaten this system."
Knowing the threats
Agencies like the CDO have been playing a crucial role in helping Asean countries enhance their cybersecurity capabilities and safeguard their digital landscapes.
"As Asean countries made considerable progress in digital transformation and connectivity, they face various cybersecurity challenges," said Carver.
These challenges include sophisticated cyber attacks, data breaches, ransomware attacks and online fraud. Additionally, the rapid expansion of the Internet of Things and emerging technologies, like AI and blockchain, present new security risks that require proactive measures.
He, however, said there was a lot of talk about complicated things like ransomware and national state activities, but the reality was that the majority of the threats were very basic.
"These are scams, phishing emails, social engineering and criminals trying to workout your passwords. Essentially, sometimes, getting the basic right is more important, where 70 to 80 per cent of the criminal activities are happening.
"So get the basic right and 60 to 70 per cent of damage Malaysians are likely to suffer will be resolved," he added.
Asean readiness
Are Asean countries prepared for the cybersecurity threats? In response to this, Carver said over the last four years, a lot of amazing things happened in the cybersecurity space in this region, including Malaysia.
"Malaysia, for example, has the National Cyber Security Agency (Nacsa), which is the prominent cybersecurity agency here, and the country will soon have a cybersecurity legislation.
"Alongside that, there are a lot of exciting activities happening in the Asian region, like the Asian Regional Forum, the Asian Digital Ministers event. Even in the UK, we're still in our cybersecurity and resilience journey, we still have our threats and breaches. I think Asean and Malaysia are also on that journey..
"With all these great cybersecurity initiatives coming in, it's about how you operationalise that, how you build the trust between government, industry and academia to create that really effective resilient cyber-ecosystem. So you have the kind of cyber specialists that you need but also businesses kind of recognise the part they need to play to protect themselves."
Working together
In becoming a strong group of nations in the cybersecurity space, Carver said it's important that Asean countries be honest and transparent.
"We should share all our good practices. In my four years in this region, I've seen many great practices in Asean. What we in the UK are trying to do is to share the good practices, and to recognise that the world should be very clear what is good cybersecurity practice and how they can implement it and protect their businesses and citizens," he said.
"We need to talk more, engage more and find better ways to communicate and collaborate and joint working and exercise and help build capacity, and we're working closely with Nacsa to try to drive forward the UK-Malaysia relationship."
Initiatives
In Malaysia, Carver said the FCDO and Nacsa have run an exercise of how the energy sector should run and protect themselves from cybersecurity incidents.
"Besides that, we've also done a lot of work in Asean, like courses of training diplomats on the key issues in cybersecurity space, and we've been doing work around communications during cyber crises at Asean level," he said.
"We've been working with an organisation called Shadow Server, which has done a lot of Internet scanning for business and government on some of the cyber insights that they have."
The FCDO also shares a lot of good practice on how we protect our own system with our Malaysian counterparts, like our public services cybersecurity strategy, skills and education.
"Although it may not be 100 per cent relevant here, it's about sharing what works for us and for countries to take the good practices and make them their own, and we are really excited to continue our collaboration," he added.
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