Integrated Cyber Security in a New Reality: Future-proofing Organisations to Ensure Cyber Resiliency

With cyber security increasingly becoming critical in the tech industry, the SGTech Cyber Security Chapter organised an online webinar with Kaspersky for a robust discussion on this topic. The attendees gained insights on cyber security predictions that will reshape IT priorities over the next five years, how the data revolution has exacerbated the risk of cyber security threats, and most importantly, how their organisations can fight against these threats effectively. 

Welcome Address by SGTech Cyber Security Chapter Chairman Mr Dutch Ng

Mr Ng kickstarted the session with an introduction of SGTech, a premier trade association for the tech industry in Singapore.

As the Cyber Security Chapter Chairman, Mr Ng was enthused to have this opportunity to pick the minds of fellow cyber security experts on how cyber security trends will likely impact the business landscape in the near future.

Integrated Cyber Security in a New Reality by IDC Asia / Pacific Research Manager, Mr James Sivalingam 

As an expert in market intelligence and advisory services for the ICT industry, IDC Asia / Pacific’s Mr James Sivalingam kickstarted the session with an exciting preview of the future business landscape – with IDC’s Futurescape predictions:

• By 2024, 55% of organisations will have a comprehensive digital transformation roadmap.
• By 2025, 60% of leading businesses will leverage digital platforms and ecosystem capabilities.
• 50% of enterprises will invest heavily in digitalising employee experience in 2021 – to better cope with training, events, and more happening virtually in a post-pandemic world. 

At the core of many of the developments, data is key. With technology becoming increasingly democratised and affordable, data utilisation technology that is deployed in large organisations are slowly trickling down to Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs). We are witnessing a reality that amidst the pandemic, more organisations are shifting their spending priorities to focus more on data programmes. 

On the flip side, Mr Sivalingam also acknowledged that the data revolution has also brought about its own set of security challenges that continue to plague organisations worldwide. In discussing security challenges that organisations are facing and will continue to face in the future, Mr Sivalingam narrowed down on 4 main areas:

• Underestimation of risk factors – where companies merely adopt the bare minimum of what is required by regulators.
• Zero-day vulnerability – where disclosed vulnerabilities that developers have yet to develop a patch for are targeted by cybercriminals.
• Lack of in-house security skills and resources – make it challenging for organisations to deal with larger scale and heightened security threats.
• Insufficient focus on security by management – which is slowly changing with increasing awareness amongst higher management on how it could impact their bottom line.
  
  

Rounding up his sharing on a positive note, Mr Sivalingam shared some guidance on how business leaders can future-proof their organisations amidst this challenging and evolving climate. 

How to Use Tech to Beef Up Your Cyber Security Posture by Kaspersky APAC Head of Presales, Mr Leonard Sim 

As an established technical sales professional in the IT security industry, Mr Leonard Sim provided invaluable insights into how organisations can find tangible solutions to plug their security gaps.

Giving local context, Mr Sim shared how cyber security challenges are getting more commonplace, with data breaches, security breaches, and ransomware for large and small enterprises right here in Singapore making the headlines every other week. Successful attacks can lead to significant losses – for SMEs that could be in the range of $101k and for larger enterprises, from $1.09 million onwards.

In hindsight, he pointed out that many of such breaches were linked not directly to the organisations’ action or inaction but rather due to errors on their third-party vendors. He cautioned that hackers are increasingly using smaller, less secure organisations as a potential source of intrusion into the larger organisations. Hence they need to beef up their security or risk being cut off by the larger organisations as potential liabilities. 

Mr Sim also took the opportunity to showcase how Kaspersky’s suite of solutions can help organisation fight against these threats effectively. He touched on the different permutations of varying levels of Kapersky’s solutions targeted at various stages of potential threat activity: 

• Penetration – Enhance employee security awareness, reduce surface attack area, and implement automatic threat prevention. 
• Installation – Utilise advanced detection mechanisms to detect suspicious behaviour, automated threat hunting, and more.
• Rooting – Root cause analysis and Indicator of Compromise (IoC) scanning to prevent resurfacing of similar threats in the future. 

To wrap up, Mr Sim highlighted how Kaspersky offers a wide suite of security solutions for clients looking for different levels of security - from commodity threats, evasive threats to targeted threats.

Q&A moderated by Mr Ng and Answered by Mr Sivalingam and Mr Sim

During the Q&A session, the audience took the opportunity to pose a range of questions to the respective expert panellists – from the necessity of multi-layer security solutions, how to handle the variety of solutions without sufficient manpower in house, the accessibility and affordability of machine learning solutions to the effectiveness of cyber security awareness training. 

Join SGTech Cyber Security Chapter

SGTech's Cyber Security Chapter brings together vendors, resellers and integrators of cyber security products, solutions and services, as well as auditors, consultants, practitioners and legal and compliance organisations in the cyber security ecosystem. The Chapter aims to promote awareness and adoption of cyber security among organisations in Singapore, and boost a pipeline of talent to ensure the continued viability of Singapore's cyber security industry.

Drop us a note at [email protected] to join us as a member.

---
Published May 2021