Singapore firms see 54 cybersecurity incidents daily, struggle to keep up

The cybersecurity threat landscape is evolving so quickly companies in Singapore are finding it tough to keep up. Half feel "inundated" by an endless stream of cyber attacks, describing this as one of their biggest work frustrations. 

Just 25% of cybersecurity professionals in Singapore felt "very confident" in their organisation's ability to adapt to new threats, compared to an average of 36% across the globe. Another 62% in the Asian market acknowledged they were struggling to keep up with the evolving threat landscape, revealed a survey conducted by Coleman Parkes, which polled 500 cybersecurity decision-makers in Singapore. They were part of a global study commissioned by security vendor Trellix that canvassed responses from 9,000 cybersecurity decision-makers from 15 markets, including India, Indonesia, Australia, Germany, the US, and the UK. 

Respondents in Singapore on average had to deal with 54 cybersecurity incidents on a daily basis, with 39% managing 50 to 200 such incidents a day. Globally, 34% said they dealt with 25 to 50 security incidents a day, while 25% had to manage twice as many daily. 

In Singapore, 80% said security breaches in the past 12 months led to losses of up to 10% of their organisation's revenue. Respondents from midsize businesses with revenue of between $50 million and $100 million estimated their company lost an average of 9% in revenue, while those from large enterprises of revenue between $10 billion and $25 billion said losses averaged at 5% of revenue. 

Some 64% said their current security tools did not support their security operations team to function with maximum efficiency, while 35% confessed to having blindspots in their protection. Another 90% said their cybersecurity infrastructure was "siloed". 

Some 38% said they were likely to implement network detection and response tools in the next 18 months, while 36% pointed to security orchestration (NDR), automation and responses (SOAR), and 35% said they would implement security information and event management (SIEM). 

"Siloed security systems are placing an unnecessary burden on overstretched SecOps teams, making organizations easy targets for malicious actors," said Trellix's Asia managing director Jonathan Tan. "It's time we reject siloed security as the status quo and take concrete steps towards building a more flexible, intelligent security model, which will ultimately help to safeguard sensitive data."

According to the survey, 45% globally cited employee error such as users downloading compromised files or clicking on malicious links as the top cybersecurity threat their organisation faced. Another 39% pointed to insider threat, while 34% said phishing and spear-phishing attacks as the top threats. 

Some 30% said ransomware attacks and 29% highlighted poor cyber hygiene as top cybersecurity threats their organisation faced. 

Asked about their top cybersecurity concerns, 44% cited high cost of cybersecurity products and services, while 39% pointed to difficulties detecting and responding to advanced threats and 36% were concerned about having limited threat intelligence and insights.

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