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S’pore firms hesitant to share data on cyber threat incidents with peers: Study

SINGAPORE — A regional survey has found that only a third of companies here have shared information on cyber threat incidents with their peers in the industry — lower than the average of 44 per cent in the Asia-Pacific, and half of the proportion in China.

A regional survey has found that only a third of companies here have shared information on cyber threat incidents with their peers in the industry — lower than the average of 44 per cent in the Asia-Pacific, and half of the proportion in China. Photo: www.freeimages.com

A regional survey has found that only a third of companies here have shared information on cyber threat incidents with their peers in the industry — lower than the average of 44 per cent in the Asia-Pacific, and half of the proportion in China. Photo: www.freeimages.com

SINGAPORE — A regional survey has found that only a third of companies here have shared information on cyber threat incidents with their peers in the industry — lower than the average of 44 per cent in the Asia-Pacific, and half of the proportion in China.

The reasons that the firms here are hesitant to share the information included a fear of being seen as a victim of data breaches.

“The publicity that comes along with the failure to prevent a cyber attack appears to have a greater negative effect on an organisation’s reputation, going beyond financial impact,” said cyber security company Palo Alto Networks yesterday, which conducted the study.

Released yesterday, findings from the study, which surveyed more than 500 professionals in the Asia-Pacific, came after the Singapore Government last week proposed new laws to beef up the country’s defences against increasingly sophisticated cyber attacks.

Among other things, the draft Cybersecurity Bill, which has been put up for public consultation, would require critical information infrastructure owners of 11 key sectors to report any cyber security incidents, and to share information with the authorities when ordered. These sectors provide essential services and comprise government, security and emergency, healthcare, telecommunications, banking and finance, energy, water, media, land transport, air transport and maritime.

The study, which covered the Australia, China, Hong Kong, India and Singapore markets, said Singapore companies that took part in the survey cited reputation damage (28 per cent) in the event of a data breach as their top concern, followed by loss of confidential details (27 per cent) and company downtime (25 per cent).

It also found that 37 per cent of respondents in Singapore have suffered losses of at least S$140,000 due to data breaches in the financial year. About six in 10 respondents here reported an increase in their cyber security budget, while 86 per cent of the Singapore companies surveyed said they have a “dedicated IT security department or team”.

The study said that, despite “dedicated financial and human resources”, almost half of the respondents in Singapore acknowledged their inability to keep up with evolving cyber security solutions as a “primary barrier to ensuring cyber security in their organisations”.

Mr Sean Duca, vice-president and regional chief security officer (Asia-Pacific) of Palo Alto Networks, reiterated that cyber threats were “not problems you can solve simply by increasing budgets”. “A good approach to cyber security requires the buy-in of business leaders and understanding of the threat landscape so they can help design and implement more effective cyber security policies in order to prevent breaches,” he said.

He added that apart from ensuring that networks are adequately secure, organisations must also ensure that “employee education is elevated to the top of their cyber security agenda”.

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