In Malaysia, the cybersecurity situation is changing as organizations deal with an increase in cyber threats. A recent survey by IDC shows that phishing is the main concern, with 54% of organizations ranking it as the biggest threat. The top five risks in Malaysia are ransomware, unpatched vulnerabilities, identity theft, and attacks on the Internet of Things (IoT).
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Ransomware incidents in the country have doubled, with over 50% of organizations experiencing a two-fold increase in 2023 compared to the previous year. Fortinet, who commissioned the report, discussed the data from the SecOps report. They highlighted key findings and shed light on the escalating challenges faced by Malaysian organizations in cybersecurity.
The survey highlights the importance of AI and automation in SecOps. According to the report, phishing, malware, SQL injection, insider threats, and IoT vulnerabilities are the main attack vectors.
The survey shows important information about cybersecurity, highlighting how remote work has led to more insider threats. For example, 88% of respondents link the increase in insider threat incidents to remote work, citing reasons such as lack of training, employee negligence, and poor communication.
Only 38% of businesses have dedicated IT resources for security teams, making it harder to strengthen security measures. The impact of emerging technologies like hybrid work, AI, and IT/OT system convergence presents significant challenges. Cloud technology adoption is a major obstacle that increases organizational vulnerability to cyber threats.
During a briefing in Kuala Lumpur on November 13, 2023, Rashish Pandey, Fortinet’s vice president of marketing & communications for Asia and ANZ, stated that as cyberthreats continue to evolve, many organizations are facing diverse cyber threats. He suggested using Fortinet’s security operations solutions with advanced AI to automate incident detection and response.
Pandey promised that they could detect and contain threats in an average time of one hour, investigate and fix issues in an average of 11 minutes, achieve a 597% return on investment, double team productivity, and reduce expected breach costs by US$1.39 million.
48% of organizations in Malaysia feel unprepared for threats and want better cybersecurity. 75% don’t do regular risk assessments, making it hard to detect threats. More than 50% of companies deal with alert fatigue and have about 221 incidents every day.
“Two out of five enterprises grapple with over 500 incidents daily, leading to alert fatigue. The top two alerts faced are suspicious emails (phishing) and malware or virus detections, highlighting the imperative for targeted training on phishing awareness. Additionally, suspicious user behavior, account lockouts, and multiple failed login attempts contribute to alert fatigue,” the report reads.
False positives are a big problem. 62% of alerts are false positives. This shows that there is a need for automation. It is difficult for 98% of respondents to develop the skills needed to handle cyberthreats. This emphasizes the need for improving skills, especially in automation, multi-tasking, and critical thinking.