34% of Asia-Pacific firms turning to 3rd parties to battle cyberattacks

MANILA  -About 34 percent of the companies in the Asia-Pacific region are looking at hiring third-party professionals to look over their cybersecurity defenses as they gear up for the continuous launches of digital attacks, according to a survey conducted by Kaspersky.

In a study, the Russian cybersecurity firm revealed that 77 percent of the surveyed information technology (IT) security professionals in the region claimed their company dealt with digital threats in the last two years. The majority of these attacks were tagged “serious” by the respondents.

The cited reasons for the cyber incidents include the lack of threat detection tools and shortage of IT staff tasked with fending off digital attacks.

“Businesses in Asia-Pacific have been battling shortage in local cybersecurity professionals for years now. In fact, in 2022, it’s reported that the region needs 2.1 million more security staff to meet the demand,” said Adrian Hia, managing director for Asia-Pacific at Kaspersky.

In response to staff shortage, some of the respondents raised the need to outsource their cybersecurity needs to managed service providers.

Kaspersky said that energy and oil and gas companies were the most likely industries to invest in third-party services soon.

The study noted the interest from companies to invest in automation of their cybersecurity process.

The Kaspersky survey found that 51 percent of the respondents were ready to put in place cybersecurity software in the next 12 months. Some 15 percent, meanwhile, were still discussing the matter.

In the advent of hybrid work, attack surface has widened as employees access the company network outside the office premises via online platforms.

Rajesh Ganesan, president of IT service provider ManageEngine, previously said business email compromise (BEC) attacks were among the common digital threats targeting enterprises.

BEC is a form of cyberattack whereby hackers send emails embedded with suspicious links to business emails of company employees. Such a threat hopes to trick employees into providing access to the corporate IT system.

According to its cyber threat intelligence report, Microsoft detected and looked into 35 million BEC attempts globally between April 2022 and April 2023. On average, 156,000 BEC attempts are registered daily.