ZURICH: Kaspersky Lab sees opportunities in the areas of protecting critical infrastructure in Malaysia from cyber threats in line with the country’s Industrial Revolution 4.0 (IR 4.0) plan.
Kaspersky Lab is a multinational cybersecurity company and anti-virus provider headquartered in Moscow.
The company’s Southeast Asia General Manager Yeo Siang Tiong said the antivirus provider is looking towards protecting the critical infrastructures, both conventional IT, as well as complex industrial systems.
“The majority of targeted attacks against businesses now is conducted with cyberespionage in mind, harvesting precious business secrets or confidential personal data.
“But from time to time hackers get up to something completely different, like sabotage,” he told Bernama, in conjunction with the Kasperksy Transparent Summit: Rebuilding Trust and Minimising Risk in Cybersecurity, held here recently.
He said this mode of attack was especially alarming, because IT departments tend to focus on data loss and data leaks, leaving them unprepared for the cyberattack-induced disruption to their whole business process, involving many different systems.
“Organisations need to build a solid cyber defence plan, which would better prepare the businesses for the IR 4.0.
“Cybersecurity of critical infrastructure and industrial facilities is of great importance, because of their importance to the stability and economy of the country,” he added.
The government allocated more than RM5 billion in the 2019 Budget to propel industries in Malaysia in the wake of the IR 4.0.
Of this amount, RM210 million has been allocated over three years from 2019 to support the transition and migration to Industry 4.0, in line with the Malaysia National Policy on Industry 4.0.
Elaborating further about prospects in Malaysia, Yeo said Malaysia is also aggressively striving to become a cashless society, hence, necessitating regulators and e-payment providers to consider and implement more effective as well as far-reaching fraud detection and prevention systems across the ecosystem.
“Financial services will need to rethink digital identities and use innovative solutions to be sure that customers are who they say they are, every time,” he added.
According to a global survey conducted by Kaspersky Lab, only 52 per cent of financial companies and 46 per cent of firms engaged in e-commerce believe they need to take enhanced measures to protect financial transactions.
Going forward, Kasperksy Lab sees growth in the digital space and enterprise areas to be key drivers for the company.
“Digital space focuses on our own e-commerce platforms, working with Lazada, Amazon, to push our products and collaboration with telcos in the regions.
“We are introducing new technologies to enterprise customers,” Yeo said.- Bernama
