The ASEAN region is seeing more cyber attacks as digitisation advances.
In July 2023, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations officially opened a joint cyber security information sharing and research centre, or Cybersecurity and Information Centre of Excellence, in a bid to increase the region's shared cyber threat defences.
At the opening of the ACICE, Singapore's Ministry of Defence said Singapore alone experienced a 174% increase in phishing attempts between 2021 and 2022, while Southeast Asia cyber crime had increased 82%. Recorded Future Chief Information Security Officer Jason Steer told TechRepublic some customers in the region felt digitisation was turning data from gold into uranium due to cyber risk.
At threat intelligence firm Recorded Future's local conference in the region, Steer said CISOs in ASEAN were more conscious than ever now that, although they want lots of data about clients because of the value it can drive for their businesses, there is a rising consciousness that the appetite for data also brings risks.
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ASEAN nations feeling the heat of more cyber criminal activity.
The Asia-Pacific region as a whole was the most attacked region in the world in 2022, according to a report from IBM. Further, a July 2023 survey by Cloudflare of 4,000 cyber security managers in the region found that 78% of those interviewed had experienced at least one cyber security incident in the previous 12 months.
Cloudflare's report found that, in Malaysia, Indonesia and The Philippines, the largest challenge for cyber security leaders was defending against cyber attacks in the form of phishing, web attacks and business email compromise.
48% of Singapore-based respondents to Cloudflare's survey who were rating the top issues with their cyber security architecture named limited oversight over their IT supply chain as an issue, just behind their applications and data being stored on the public cloud.
Steer said that all organisations in ASEAN, and for that matter around the world, were buying digital solutions from product vendors but were not necessarily tracking the cyber security postures of this extended ecosystem.
This conflict has the potential to impact digital supply chains as well as increase uncertainty around cyber threats facing organisations, governments or infrastructure.
ASEAN CISOs are considering the positive and negative impacts that the explosion in artificial intelligence tools may have on cyber defences and attack trends in the region.
In a world of AI, more data could add layers of security to accounts, such as where log-ins occur, what time log-ins typically happen and the IP address they usually come from.
ASEAN nations setting sights on cyber security together.
The launch of the ACICE showed ASEAN nations are continuing to work more closely together on cyber security.
The region has also developed a joint cyber security strategy and data protection framework and is working on creating a unified ASEAN security emergency response team.
Skilling up ASEAN workforces is on the agenda; Malaysia has committed to training and certifying 20,000 cyber security professionals by 2025 as part of its cyber security strategy.
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Steer said Singapore and Malaysia stand out in the region for advanced cyber security practices.
Other nations, like The Philippines, are raising the bar as well as regional cyber security standards rise, in part because of the supply chain governance and risk frameworks they are being compelled to follow to keep up with competitors in the region.
This Cyber News was published on www.techrepublic.com. Publication date: Mon, 04 Dec 2023 11:13:06 +0000