By Yeo Siang Tiong
SINCE 2015, the Malaysian Government has put in the efforts strengthen the security of both public and private networks in the country.
Last October, Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin announced the Malaysia Cyber Security Strategy 2020-2024 which aims to step up the nation’s cybersecurity preparedness and capabilities.
And just last week, he also spoke during the first Asean Digital Ministers’ Meeting where he emphasised the critical link between the region’s digitalisation drive – during and post-pandemic era – and the need to beef up both regional and national security capacities through improved coordination across the ASEAN countries.
The current digital shift and the COVID-19-triggered disruptions indeed created a spike on threats against individuals and public and private institutions in Malaysia and globally.
The number of unique malware samples we have detected last year was at 360,000 daily on average which is a 5.2% uptick compared with 2019 statistics.
We have seen multiple, massive data breaches last year not just in the country but across the Southeast Asia region.
With these in mind, we recommend that government and private organisations adhere to the following steps:
Continuously educate employees about the online risks, especially during this work-from-home period. It is ideal to have regular and interactive cybersecurity training sessions to remind them of the simple yet crucial habits while on the internet.
- Advocate good password habits across all employees and all devices connected to the organisation’s network.
- Make it a point to use updated, legitimate, and regularly patched software.
- Ensure that proper and comprehensive endpoint solutions are in place.
- Set up tiered levels of access, giving permission only to those who need it on each level. Be sure to review it regularly as well.
- New malware and more sophisticated techniques are being employed by cybercriminal groups every day. Keep your systems intelligent and update-to-date by incorporating global threat feeds and threat intelligence report which provide in-depth visibility and detailed information about the most recent threats targeting organisations like yours.
- In case of an attack, be sure to involve relevant law enforcement agencies and cybersecurity experts to conduct proper mitigation, investigation, and recovery.- Jan 28, 2021
Yeo Siang Tiong is the general manager (Southeast Asia) at Kaspersky.
The views expressed are solely of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Focus Malaysia.
