Cybersecurity remains one of the critical business challenges that business leaders face in their quest to strengthen their resilience in the pandemic-inspired 'new normal'. The cyber threat landscape has increased both in quantity and sophistication of attack vectors in tandem with rapidly evolving technologies as well as the surge in digital commerce and remote working in the 'new normal'.
According to the 2020 report on the cyber threat landscape which must be addressed by member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the sobering reality is that botnet infections, phishing scams, and ransomware – among others, are evidently on the rise.
International security agency INTERPOL also ranks Malaysia among the top 3 countries in terms of mobile banking malware detections.
Cybersecurity threats have been exacerbated by fallout from Covid-19: Malaysia recorded an 82.5% increase in cybersecurity cases in 2020. In addition, 838 incidents were reported to the Cyber Security Malaysia (CSM) between March 18 and April 7 of last year – when the first phase of movement control order (MCO) commenced.
The recent cyberattack threat from Anonymous Malaysia, a group of hacker activists or hacktivists, which resurfaced after a five-year hiatus, has pledged a concerted cyber campaign against government websites and online assets. This in turn has signalled cybersecurity readiness concern through, other industry sectors.
In the current shifting landscape, Malaysian enterprises – many of which lack the resources to have in place the necessary critical cybersecurity skills, technologies and capabilities to mitigate the sophisticated wave of cyber threats – must make urgent strategic decisions – and act on them.
Moving forward, remote working culture is here to stay, and cloud adoption plays a vital role as both an enabler and an operational platform for an organisation’s digital transformation. Business decisions concerning on which elements can be handled in-house and which must be outsourced or brought in as a service are now game changing actions for Malaysian enterprises intent on transforming the “new normal” into an era of opportunity.
By 2025, the digital economy will contribute 22.6% of the Malaysian GDP. In the recently announced MyDIGITAL Digital Economy Blueprint (DEB), the Prime Minister provided the assurance that “the Government will monitor the information security of data management to avoid any future cyber threats. He also mentioned that “cyber security and data security will be one of the main focus of the Government in realising the vision of digitally technological nation. The data of the citizens will be managed based on the security policy provided by National Cyber Security Agency (NACSA) as the implementation agency”.
Building cyber resilience now must go hand in hand with an organisation’s proactive cyber defence strategy: beneficiaries of this heightened approach include a better protected digital infrastructure, cleaner data in the cloud, and through every end-point.
IDC defines building digital trust as ‘enabling decisions to be made between two or more entities that reflect their level of confidence in each other’.
Today, digital trust between an organisation and its customers, is essential for most if not all economic activity in an increasingly digital-first world.
Furthermore, enterprises are obligated to protect their clients’ data. Mandatory regulatory compliance is designed to enhance an organisation’s security posture through the actions required to maintain the confidentiality, integrity, and relevant accessibility of data and digital services.
The success of an organisation’s digital transformation is guided by high standard of safety and compliance regulatory frameworks. Excellence in regulatory management and compliance translates to robust baseline security standards, which in turn increases digital trust and cyber resilience.
Of course, it is important that we remain aware of certain security risks when using cloud services, especially those concerning non-compliance to regulatory requirements, and the correct management and mitigation of disruptions such as identity theft, online fraud, malware infections, data breaches; and to have in place guidelines to safeguard your brand and reputation.
Companies must carefully balance any digital risks of using cloud computing against the benefits and returns on investment (ROIs).
Malaysia Cyber Security Strategy 2020-2024 (MCSS) outlines the key objectives and five strategic pillars that will govern all aspects of cybersecurity planning and implementation in Malaysia until 2024. One of the focus areas is to improve national cyber resilience against cyber threats, which ranges from advanced persistent threats to cybercrimes and content-related threats.
MCSS is crucial for achieving Malaysia’s Digital Economy Blueprint (DEB) by protecting government and CNII networks, systems, and data, as well as businesses and citizens, while at the same time combating cybercrime and cyber threats. This is where an Active Cyber Defense (ACD) approachis required and for organisations to develop and apply ACD measures to effectively mitigate cyber threats and to enhance the levels of cybersecurity readiness focusing on the capability to detect, analyse, and act upon any cyber threats within Malaysia’s cyber defence ecosystem.
According to various reports, more than a third of organisations globally are striving to implement new technologies to support their digital journey, and Malaysia is no different.
Malaysian organisations are groping for the right approaches to cope with a highly sophisticated cybersecurity landscape.
According to IDC’s 2020 Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan) Enterprise Services Sourcing Survey, more than 70% of Malaysian organisations surveyed agree that security is not within their core portfolio, and they would prefer to engage a trusted partner to address their security requirements.
A dynamic technology landscape coupled with rising levels of sophisticated artificial-intelligence (AI) powered cyber threats, exacerbated by a shortage of in-house digital and security skills, points to the power of a collaborative approach to as an essential business strategy.
Partnering with the right vendors, with expertise and solutions that include cybersecurity services, functions, is becoming rapidly established as an ideal business strategy in this new digital era.
An example of ideal benefits and required deliverables can be found within TM One’s Cyber Defence Centre (CYDEC).
CYDEC is a fully managed security services that brings multiple benefits including global cyber threat intelligence services to protect brand and reputation, online fraud and business disruptions. TM One, the business solutions arm of Telekom Malaysia Berhad (TM) has an extensive and distinguished record as an ideal digital transformative partner and is the only local Cloud Services Provider (CSP) for MyDIGITAL.
With CYDEC, organisations can effortlessly ensure that in-house IT resources can remain focused on business core matters. By leveraging on CYDEC’s pool of security professionals, more time and resources can be allocated to an organisation’s internal team, enabling sustained focus on business-critical areas, such as data security, identity monitoring, and internal threat hunting across systems.
CYDEC’s capability and capacity focuses on a business value approach to eliminate potential risks when implementing security technologies by ensuring that the new tools integrate with the organisation’s existing portfolio; which enhances the internal security team’s efficiency and effectiveness.
Furthermore, CYDEC offers real-time visibility with the Global Cybersecurity Operations Centre (G-CSOC) or a 24/7 monitoring of global Cyber Threat Intelligence (CTI) services with Active Cyber Defence (ACD) capabilities.
For businesses, this means real-time cyber defence services, resulting in valuable time and cost savings, avoiding business disruption, providing peace of mind and regulatory compliance when stopping or mitigating cyber threats.
In today’s new reality, ensuring compliance across the many regulations is an essential journey to becoming a trusted business with essential levels of cyber resilience. Global leaders now use compliance audits to further refine the transformational process, advance technology, and the capabilities of their people.
The Malaysia Digital Economy Blueprint is aimed at accelerating the country’s transformation into a technologically-advanced economy by 2030. TM via TM One will continue to support the national digital connectivity (fixed and mobile), as well as the digital infrastructure (cloud, data centre) to ensure that it is secured and protected.
TM One CYDEC delivers numerous benefit Malaysian enterprises and public sector institutions in building digital trust and cybersecurity resilience. This is done by managing the key five (5) key areas of risk - cybersecurity, compliance, privacy, ethics and social responsibility. These managed security services provide access to real-time, continuous, predictive cybersecurity, quickly and without complexity.
TM One being part of TM Group as the enabler of Digital Malaysia, is here to bridge and balance the need for cybersecurity in order to successfully use cloud services; and to enable organisations to focus on their transformation journey, securely and comfortably.
