PH warned vs more persistent, ingenious hackers

Cybersecurity firm Kaspersky has warned local enterprises that cyberhackers would be more persistent and ingenious in launching their ransomware attacks, stressing the need to build up a strong defense against the digital threats that could disrupt operations.

Yeo Siang Tiong, Kaspersky general manager for Southeast Asia, told the Inquirer they have observed that cyberhackers’ schemes have been evolving as evidenced by the kind of ransomwares being deployed.

“We were tracking the attacks for ransomware over the years … Sophistication has been further along,” he said.

Ransomware allows hackers to hold an entity’s data or system such as that held by banks and financial institutions hostage until a ransom is paid.

The disruption in operations caused by such cyberattacks is detrimental to the business due to spending related to retrieval of their data or system, in addition to opportunity costs because of the down time.

“Our 2022 data reveals this threat will continue to be a menace for enterprises in Southeast Asia because it makes good money for cybercriminals because some business executives think ransomware is just overhyped by the media, and because enterprise security teams are actually overwhelmed and undermanned to detect and respond against it,” Yeo explained.

Sounding the alarm

Last year, Kaspersky detected over 304,000 ransomware attacks targeting businesses in the region. About 21,000 of these were in the Philippines.

“We sound the alarm against ransomware targeting enterprises in [the region] but at the same time, we hear that IT (information technology) security teams and business executives need help to build their cybersecurity capabilities,” he added.

In its study, the cybersecurity firm said that one in two businesses in the region admitted they could not handle ransomware attacks should these be launched against them.

Only 5 percent also claimed to have internal incident response capabilities—in the form of a regular IT team or service provider—to address digital threats.

Kaspersky advised businesses to have a unified platform that can give them visibility of all their systems to address ransomware and other cyberattacks. INQ