Almost half of Singapore enterprises admit they lack sufficient threat intelligence amid rising cyberattacks in businesses, reveals study by Kaspersky

On Tuesday (30 July), Kaspersky hosted a media briefing session in Singapore and shared updates from its ‘B2B IT Security 2018’ report.
The study revealed that Singapore enterprises are aware cyber threats are becoming more sophisticated, but lack of tools and insights to understand these threats prevent these enterprises from effectively addressing them.
In fact, close to half (42.6%) of enterprises in Singapore admit that they lack sufficient intelligence on the threats specifically faced by their businesses.
The study, conducted in 31 countries in which 155 are respondents from Singapore, found out that more than a third of businesses experienced two to three data breaches in the last 12 months (39.1%), and also found one incident to be considered complex (39.2%).
The type of security incidents Singapore enterprises experienced in the last few months include inappropriate IT resources used by employees (49%), malware infection of BYOD devices and inappropriate sharing of data via mobile devices (40.6%), and DDoS attacks (39.4%).
Kaspersky’s survey also showed that organisations are looking to increase investment in IT security measures. More than half wish to invest in enhancing IT security (56.8%) regardless of the return-on-investment (ROI) and improving their incident response plans for data breach or IT security events (55.5%), with 50% expecting their IT security budge to increase over the next three years.
Hence, organisations are looking to invest in tools that provide insight in order to prevent or mitigate cyberattacks. 60% of organisations also invest resources in threat intelligence services, behind network detection technologies (63.2%), in addition to their cybersecurity investment.

“Singapore businesses are increasingly becoming a target for attackers. As a rapidly growing business hub, there is a wealth of data available due to the country’s fast-tracked digitalisation, increased business activities, and transactions. As such, there is a need for organisations to proactively pre-empt cyberattacks, rather than react when they happen,” said Stephan Neumeier, Managing Director for Asia Pacific at Kaspersky.

“Enterprises across all sectors are facing a shortage of real-time, relevant data to manage the risks associated with IT security threats. When they are empowered with the ability to track, analyse, interpret and mitigate constantly evolving IT security threats, they can better anticipate and understand threats, and prepare for the next step,” noted Yeo Siang Tiong, General Manager for South East Asia at Kaspersky.