Cybersecurity protection: Life insurance for your business

Globally, businesses spent an impressive USD$150 Billion on cybersecurity in 2021, reflecting a 12.4% growth year on year¹. These numbers show us a shift in the mindset of professionals investing in cybersecurity from a risk-based, reactive approach to one of preventive opportunities. What was once a crisis management technique is now a strategy that thinks of cybersecurity as the health of your business and something that requires steady investment.

Businesses act like living organisms with people, natural resources and waste associated with their operations. As such, we must consider protecting the digital systems that connect these factors as intertwined with the overall health of our organisation. Using IoT and cloud services in manufacturing to consume natural resources and manage waste means protecting these digital systems becomes as critical as protecting our natural systems.

From an overarching perspective, businesses are made up of a collection of assets that need our fierce safeguarding. Future instability puts both our business continuity and natural resources at risk, making our lines of defence as important as the business itself.

This message was clear at the 2022 Quad leaders meeting in Japan, with cyber security and climate change considered two of the globe’s biggest threats.²

If a business is a living organism, then the connections between multiple locations act like a nervous system. The office, factory and distribution hubs all present risk when the inter and intra-connections pass the information along the networks. It would be nice to think of these networks as equal in strength, but in reality, legacy systems and inexperienced employees at each hub mean our protective measures can be, at best, patchy.

Conducting a cybersecurity health check-up means analysing employee readiness by conducting security drills. This also begins to build muscle memory to detect real-world attacks when they occur.

For legacy systems with outdated security functionality, a cybersecurity health check-up means paying particular attention to ransomware attacks. The frequency of these attacks is shocking; in APAC alone, only 17% of IT security professionals say they have never detected a ransomware attack.³ This is even more daunting when we realise that the average bill for rectifying an attack on a manufacturing or production business is more than $1.5 million USD.⁴

When our health is a concern, we turn to professionals. Similarly, partnering with experienced cybersecurity teams to mitigate cyberattacks gives us the latest knowledge on hacking trends and preventive measures.

Singtel partner Trustwave operates on the principles that Managed Security Services (MSS) and Managed Detection and Response (MDR) form the core approaches to preventing attacks before they occur. Using security consultants, threat hunters and research professionals to detect and respond to attacks means our business health is protected even before we realise a problem exists.

It would be easier to protect our cybersecurity health if it was our responsibility alone. But, with an explosion in cloud usage, the relationship between businesses, providers and connected services fragments our cybersecurity needs. Add a hybrid and remote workforce to the mix, and the need to protect at the edge becomes even more urgent.

The pressure on our cloud systems increases each time we deploy dependent architecture such as databases. These can put up to 10x more workload on the system, fragmenting it further and leaving it vulnerable to attack.⁵

Combining SD-WAN and cloud security services protects assets, resources and continuity by using multiple layers of protection such as; firewalls, sandboxes, URL filters and SSL inspection. These preventive layers stop the weaknesses of legacy systems from impacting the whole network and stop cyberattacks before they occur. In addition, cloud intelligence also analyses every user and connection to add another protective layer for a remote and hybrid workforce.

Another powerful tool for protecting cyber assets is Secure Access Service Edge (SASE). Itself a cloud platform, SASE protects the connection source such as a user, hardware, IoT device or edge computing location to add a depth of security far more complex than the traditional firewall.

With an 82% increase in ransomware-related data leaks in the last year, businesses can no longer afford to wait for an attack. They must act as if these risks are inevitable. ⁶

As businesses increasingly digitise their products and operations, they must take preventive measures to protect those assets. In the same vein, as our natural resources diminish and waste management becomes more stringent, so must our approach to protecting the IoT and cloud services that manage them.

This is particularly pertinent in Asia, where 26% of all cyberattacks occur, making us the most targeted region in the world.⁷ This, however, isn’t quite the complete picture, as the high number is attributed to Asian companies’ experience in identifying and counteracting the attacks. Singapore, in particular, stands out in the region as a cybersecurity leader, with the government-established National Cyber Security Agency dating back to 2015. In 2016 a S$13.9m investment in the ASEAN Cyber Capacity programme confirmed Singapore as the cybersecurity gateway to Asia.⁸

The 2022 Cyber Security World conference in Singapore took a forward-looking approach by focusing on enhancing cyber resilience rather than preparing for attacks. This is an evolutionary step further than the regions still struggling to identify attacks or prevent leaks.

Just as buying life insurance is an optimistic action in the face of the worst circumstances, cybersecurity takes preventive action for the health of your business assets. Layers of security show investors that these assets are protected and business continuity is essential to profitability. It also reduces the risk of IT team burnout by giving them tools to work steadily on the task rather than expecting an all-hands-on-deck, round-the-clock crisis approach when an attack occurs.

Building preventive cybersecurity with a partner experienced in the threats to your region and industry will hinder the rise of attacks and protect the overall health of your business.

Contact our cybersecurity experts to build asset protection and strengthen your lines of defence.
 

References:

¹ McKinsey, 2022, New survey reveals $2 trillion market opportunity for cybersecurity technology and service providers

² IT News, 2022, Quad countries to boost CERT cooperation

³ ExtraHop, 2022, Cyber Confidence Index: Asia Pacific

⁴ Sophos, 2021, The State of Ransomware in Manufacturing and Production

⁵ World Economic Forum, 2022, Why the cloud is the new rainmaker for cybersecurity

⁶ Crowdstrike, 2022, Asia Pacific and Japan state of security

⁷ ZD Net, 2021, Asia most targeted region in 2021, taking on one in four cybersecurity attacks

⁸ Investment Monitor, 2022, Top ten global FDI locations for cybersecurity