Survey reveals Thai
organisations aren’t
taking cybersecurity
seriously enough

Most businesses are aware, at least to some extent, that cybercriminals present a significant challenge and that a successful cyberbreach could spell disaster for a business. Failing to protect the organisation with a modern, reliable cybersecurity platform could prevent organisations from being able to reach their potential; in the worst-case scenario, organisations may not be able to operate at all if they fall victim to an attack.

Fujitsu commissioned a unique report to understand how Thai organisations approach cybersecurity. The report was conducted in collaboration with Technology & Management Services (TMS), an ICT research and advisory firm with a specific focus on Asia Pacific. For this report, we spoke to more than 100 senior ICT decision-makers across Thailand.

The results were somewhat worrying. According to the report’s hype dial, a huge number of respondents think cybersecurity is overhyped and not important. This is very worrying and points to a real need among Thai organisations to get a better grasp of the cyberthreat landscape and the importance of taking the right steps to protect against threats.

Furthermore, the report investigated the implementation versus investment landscape for cybersecurity solutions. The matrix compares actual implementation against planned investment, then shows their position relative to each other (as opposed to market share).

The cybersecurity implementation vs investment matrix for Thailand suggests a disproportionately high focus on anti-virus, which is an outdated approach, while more moderate investment in areas such as network security, data privacy, and securing mobile devices should be ramped up to avoid potentially disastrous cybersecurity incidents.

While there may be no specific data privacy legislation in place yet in Thailand, legislation in Europe and Australia suggest maintaining strong data privacy measures could be a key competitive differentiator for organisations looking to do business globally.

The future of cybersecurity

Cybercriminals are constantly finding new ways to bring organisations down, so complacency or lack of awareness could be the worst thing an organisation could do. As threats continue to grow, organisations need to ensure strong data and security governance is embedded throughout the organisation.

Fujitsu has identified 10 key trends likely to dominate security in 2019:

1. While multi-cloud strategies can help accelerate digital transformation objectives, organisations will need to apply consistent security controls across the multi-cloud environment.
2. Security automation and orchestration (SAO) will help reduce the time taken to respond to incidents, which will address the cybersecurity skills shortage and help organisations comply with global privacy legislation more effectively.
3. As the threat landscape continues to grow in size and sophistication, only a proactive approach will be sufficient to protect organisations. This means hunting threats down instead of waiting to be attacked.
4. Phishing and other abuses of legitimate channels will continue to increase. Organisations will need to educate employees so they can become more adept at recognising phishing attacks and other social engineering approaches. Some organisations may move away from traditional email towards messaging services like Slack to reduce the risk of phishing attacks in the business.
5. Resilience in the face of coordinated attacks will become crucial. This requires a sustained threat intelligence gathering approach and proactive planning to cut attacks off before they reach the organisation.
6. Identity management will become increasingly important to ensure assets and systems are only accessed by authorised users. This includes physical access as well as online access.
7. Data governance will need to improve to ensure organisations can accurately pinpoint where their data resides and who can access it. It’s not enough to have a policy; organisations must back this up with reliable controls.
8. End-user requirements will become more important considerations when implementing security controls. This approach may help reduce the number of workarounds and ‘shadow IT’ that pervade organisations currently, and which create additional security risks.
9. Digital services built on trust and transparency will be the differentiator, and organisations that do the right thing because they want to, not because they’re legally required to, will stand out from the crowd even in competitive markets.
10. Privacy will be designed for the people, by the people. This means applying human intelligence to data to provide context, ensuring the ‘crown jewels’ of an organisation’s data are secured appropriately.

To stay on top of the escalating threats in the cybercrime landscape, organisations will need to be constantly vigilant. Fujitsu’s intelligence-led security approach combines market-leading intelligence tools with our own industry expertise to provide you with an informed picture of your current threats and vulnerabilities. We use that information to determine the right solutions to protect your assets.

To find out how Fujitsu can help your organisation on its digital transformation journey, contact us today.

To access the full report, click below.