It & Technology Archives

Cybersecurity: Eight Ways You Can Boost Employee Buy-In

Cybersecurity threats are an ongoing problem, and one that’s growing: It’s hard to go a month without some organization reporting a breach or other problems. There were, for instance, more reported instances of data breaches in the U.S. during the first half of 2018 than in all of 2013, according to a report on Statista.

Yet, no matter how extensive cybersecurity measures are, the human element is a regular issue: Specifically, how well employees comply with the new procedures, sometimes handed down from people far removed from the employees’ department, who don’t necessarily understand all the ins and outs of how those employees do their daily work. A well-thought-out plan can go sideways, for instance, if team members ignore some of the steps involved to save time or avoid hassles — something quite possible, if they don’t understand why a task exists in the first place.

So how do you ensure individual buy-in, in order to keep your organization protected against data breaches or other security issues? Below, eight members of Forbes Technology Council share their preferred methods for boosting cybersecurity buy-in, as well as discuss why the approaches work. Here’s what they said:

Make Understanding A Priority

Security and compliance actually have two separate goals. A compliance program should focus on the minimally invasive way to meet all public policy and industry rules to prevent fines or other sanctions. Security is about providing the correct level of protection to make an asset an unattractive target for a criminal. When employees understand the objective and outcome, you create buy-in. – Bret Piatt, Jungle Disk

Lay Out All Of The Facts

It has become abundantly clear in the last 12 months in the world of cutting-edge technology companies, that customer data must be protected and respected to a massive degree. Such behavior does not merely grant your firm a competitive advantage. Rather, it is singularly pivotal to your firm’s very survival in the digital age. Make this fact clear to your teams on day one, and every day after. – Zia Yusuf, Velocity

Clearly Define Policies

Often employees are left guessing “what’s our policy?” The ISO Compliance regime allows companies to clearly define those policies or rules, and then audit. Employees aren’t left guessing, for example, whether they can connect their personal Bluetooth fitness tracker. Employees need to feel good about their role in security, model good behaviors, and to be the sentinels when things don’t look right. – Phil Quade, Fortinet

YOU MAY ALSO LIKE

Forbes Technology Council is an invitation-only community for world-class CIOs, CTOs and technology executives. Do I qualify?

Make It An Employee-Managed Initiative

Make cybersecurity an “employee-managed initiative.” Involve them in the “internal security committee” that tracks compliance. Communicate cybersecurity’s importance and the impact it has on the business using terms and language they understand. We use comic book-like imagery and sci-fi and comic language in posters across the office that reinforces the message without being suffocating. – AshwinRamasamy, PipeCandy, Inc.

Demo A Break-In

Typical security procedures seem more like theatre than security, forcing employees through repetitive steps with no clear meaning. One of the best ways I’ve found to get employee buy-in is to demonstrate how vulnerable the company is to security violations. You can do this by having employees attempt to break in themselves, or watch someone else do so. It makes security real to watch it fail. – Sean Byrnes, Outlier AI, Inc.

Read more in The Cybersecurity Maturity Model: A Means To Measure And Improve Your Cybersecurity Program

Create Security Roles

Protecting your company against attacks includes having a reliable team of experts in place who will identify risks in your network and business systems, while proactively creating mitigation strategy. Creating security roles and setting limited access required by each position and educating employees by holding yearly cybersecurity seminars will play a vital role in cybersecurity compliance. – Lana Vernovsky, Dynamics Resources

Illustrate Importance

The best way to improve employee buy-in and compliance on cybersecurity features is to illustrate the importance of these issues. Regular training can help improve your employees’ understanding of company policies and will help to strengthen mutual goals, even through interpersonal differences. – Schieler Mew, CS Design Studios

Make It A Part Of New-Employee Orientation

In our industry, we deal with sensitive customer data, including their bank account information. As part of new-employee orientation, I personally ask all new employees to safeguard this data and explain how our policies and training help us exceed customer expectations on protecting their confidential data. – VinayPai, Bill.com

Cyber Security Today:Online holiday shopping tips

It’s the holiday gift-buying season, which means it’s time to carefully consider security features when buying Internet-connected devices. Plus, a kid’s watch with big security problems and a warning for Black Friday.

Welcome to Cyber Security Today. It’s Friday November 16th. To hear the podcast, click on the arrow below:

The Mozilla Foundation, which makes the Firefox browser, has a web page with mini-reviews of 70 toys, games, coffee makers, pet finders and other products. Many of them rate poorly for security. So here’s a few questions to ask when choosing a wireless gift: Can it spy on you with a camera, microphone or location tracking? If so, does it use encryption? Can you control it through a changeable password? Does the manufacturer issue security updates? Does it delete data it stores on you? Does it have a privacy policy you can understand? Most answers should be on the product’s website. But, does a child’s toy really need to connect to the Internet? To get a look at the list and Mozilla’s thinking go to Foundation.mozilla.org and look for the page “Privacy Not Included.”

One connected product for kids the MiSafes Kid Watcher Plus, a watch that allows parents to track the location of their children. However, this week the BBC reported that a researcher said the device can be easily hacked, the data wasn’t encrypted, nor was the data secured on each child’s account. The researcher said he could track children’s movements, listen in to their activities and make spoof calls to the watches that appeared to be from parents. Neither the researcher nor the BBC could contact the manufacturer.

Speaking of Firefox, the browser comes with a tool called Monitor, which shows if information from your online accounts has been leaked or stolen. This week an updated version of Monitor was released that adds the ability to give an alert if you visit a website that has recently hacked. However, a security company called High Tech Bridge warns this feature isn’t complete protection. Monitor uses a list of publicly-known hacked websites. If the breach isn’t reported, Monitor doesn’t know about it. So you still have to be careful where you go on the web.

Finally, Black Friday, a day in late November when companies offer a number of sales online, has become a tradition this time of year. However, it’s also a time when criminals try to take advantage of your gullibility. Kaspersky says it already has discovered threats targeting 67 e-commerce brands including 33 consumer apparel sites, eight consumer electronic outlets and three online retail platforms. Scams include intercepting what you type to make off with your username and password, and redirecting users to phishing pages. So, as always, when buying online make sure you’re on a safe site. One way is to ensure the Internet address of the site you’re on starts with HTTPS. Always watch every page you get sent to.

That’s it for Cyber Security Today. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or add us to your Alexa Flash Briefing. Thanks for listening.

5 Essential Requisites to Surmount within the IT Sector

Information Technology (IT) sector is one in all the foremost competitive however well-paying industries in Republic of India that employs nearly three million professionals associated generates an annual revenue of roughly $150 billion in keeping with the Indian whole Equity Foundation. Despite the business size and revenue, it remains ferociously competitive amongst professionals for top paying positions.

One of the basic qualities of the IT business is that it evolves apace. Considering this, technologies like massive information, Machine Learning and AI has reworked the lives of the many finish users within the past decade. The speedy evolution of technology demands that professionals operating within the IT sector unendingly upgrade their skills to stay valuable to employers and to outmatch the competition.

The necessity of getting domain experience to achieve this sector makes it essential for current IT professionals to re-skill in domains that ar prized by technical school firms. experience in domains like information Science and internet Development can stay of high price to firms and in keeping with business estimates, there’ll be a inadequacy of over seven million qualified information Scientists and internet Developers globally by 2021.

Some essential traits professionals should absorb and learn to outmatch within the IT sector ar elaborate below:

Proficient in Writing
Professionals, United Nations agency need to achieve success within the IT sector, should knowledge to code well. moreover, IT professionals United Nations agency grasp quite one writing language have a foothold over their peers. Programming languages like Javascript are in abundant demand lately by firms, so having an intensive information of it’s priceless for associate IT skilled.

Expertise in Latest Technologies
To be competitive within the job market, skilled developers should frequently upgrade their skills. 2 of the most recent associated most powerful domains to be a skilled in, are information Science and Mean Stack technology.

Data Science helps firms structure and organize Brobdingnagian volumes of unstructured information. Ancient Business Intelligence tools ar unable to assist analyse giant volumes of such information. It’s calculable that inside a pair of years eightieth of the information collected by organizations are going to be unstructured and can got to be strip-mined victimization data science tools. Information science can facilitate organizations gain substantive insights into the strip-mined information. The goal of information Science is to feature business price to a company. the typical associational beginning earnings for information somebody’s within the U.S. is $120 K whereas in Republic of India an information Scientist could earn an annual package of government agency four hundred,000.
MEAN stack is associate signifier for MongoDB, ExpressJS, AngularJS, and Node.js all of that ar a group of JavaScript-based technologies wont to develop internet applications and websites. A bonus of MEAN Stack is that each level of associate application is run employing a single language, JavaScript. The convenience of employing a single language on each level of associate application makes JavaScript economical and fashionable within the eyes of gifted internet developers.
Expertise in each these domains are often crucial for a professional’s success.

Knack for Coming up with and Execution of a Project
One of the key skills that firms rummage around for in probable hires is their ability to execute and handle a project. When it comes to an integral part of any company/organization, it becomes of utmost importance that the professionals have an eye fixed towards numerous stages and aspects concerned in it i.e. planning, ideation, management and execution. Thus each skilled should imbibe this ability to be ready to shine on top of the remainder of the ton.

Readiness to Up-skill for Longer Term
The information that the technology business amendment apace is recent hat. Whether or not one has the ability to vary with it or not, ought to be the priority for each skilled.

The advantage enjoyed by several Indian IT firms is beneath threat within the U.S. They need been idlers in adopting digital technologies. Therefore, Indian IT firms have begun to extend their overseas worker count at the expense of native Indian talent.

To outmatch, Indian IT professionals ought to up-skill and learn new technologies like AI, Blockchain, Machine Learning, and therefore the net of Things. For one to sustain within the IT business, operating professionals should become womb-to-tomb students.

Good Communication and Social Skills
Intelligence is very valued in today’s hyper-competitive company atmosphere. Organizations have completed that sensible communication skills are crucial to having the ability to figure seamlessly with shoppers and peers.

Additionally, firms these days need to rent the “leaders of tomorrow”. To do so, high IT firms look on the far side hiring people that have associate experience in an exceedingly specific technology, they appear for people that will work well with alternative professionals and lead a team once needed.
In order to essentially differentiate oneself and outmatch, one should closely endeavor to hone the ability set system inside ourselves.

What to Expect
As technologies grow a lot of subtle, bigger experience are going to be needed on the part of firms to use these technologies and add price. Professionals United Nations agency work on leading edge technology and have the proper skills are going to be in nice demand and shall command higher salaries than those while not the proper skill-set.

Automation: Robots are coming to snatch your jobs

Though a 2013 Oxford study mentioned that almost 50 per cent of all US jobs could be computerised within 20 years, 63 per cent of respondents to a Monster.com survey felt nothing could take away their jobs in the next 50 years or so. This shows that too many people are unaware of the automation wave that is coming soon.

Food service and manufacturing are predicted to be the first job industries which would be taken over by robots and AI for the most part. If some industries get highly automated, the other fields are bound to get affected too. Employees need to re-skill themselves and fast!

“Recently, the Indian banking system has seen the beginning of the revolution. Robots also make burgers and do all kinds of middle tasks, leaving behind only entrepreneurship or a temporary staffing. Artificial intelligence manages investments, handles everything like insurance claims and basic bookkeeping, and performs basic HR tasks,” says Avinash Bharwani, Vice President- New Business, Jetking.

It is your soft skills which will become extremely valuable when AI, automation or robots enter the job market. With the high pace at which new technologies are coming to the fore, we need to ask ourselves whether our work could be done by a robot. And if it can, we need to get worried.

The main jobs which will face a great automation risk include factory workers, drivers, cashiers, waiters and customer service personnel.

Which jobs are safe from automation and robots?
Creative jobs such as those of artists, designers, hairdressers, writers etc are safe as automation cannot replace true creativity Those jobs where humans display their skills such as that of a sportsperson, singer or dancer will be safe as no one would enjoy robots competing against each other or marvel at a completely artificial voice Jobs requiring empathy such as those of counsellors or therapists will be retained by humans. This category could also include to some extent teachers, vets, dentists, fitness trainers, police officers, fire-fighters etc

Jobs where you would need to cater to specific bits of knowledge such as that of tour guides or florists cannot be taken up by robots Jobs which involve creating, maintaining or fixing automation or AI technology would also be safe from robots This shows that while some jobs will be eliminated, many employees will find themselves becoming overseers to AI

Here are a few tips on how you can protect your job from automation and robots:

1. Be aware of how much automation risk you face
Do adequate research in your job field to understand if you should be worried about AI or robots taking over your job. List your skills and check whether any of them could be done by robots. Job skills which deal with people or need you to innovate and come up with new ideas are less likely to be automated. So, focus on enhancing these soft skills to safeguard your job from robots or automation in future.
2. Understand partial automation
It is quite possible that only a part of your job, such as inputting data and info onto spreadsheets, will be automated, which can actually boost your productivity. Often, employees spend a large chunk of their allotted work hours doing menial, routine jobs which do not utilise the human mind adequately. These routine jobs will be dealt with by using automation software, AI and robots. You need to make sure that your top job skills are polished and possess a human touch.
3. Work beyond your job description
To make yourself more valuable to your company, have a decent idea on how the rest of the departments work. Understand the goals of the company and increase your area of expertise so that if your job in under the threat of being taken over by automation, AI or robots, you have other options to bank on.
4. Look for a career move
If per chance you realise that your job will definitely be taken over by robots or automation and there is nothing you can do to change that, start looking for a different job which uses slightly different job skills that cannot be automated. Re-skill yourself accordingly – you can go for short certificate courses or sign up for a free course on Coursera, EdX or yet another MOOC website. Some companies also provide tuition reimbursement to employees looking to skill themselves further.

The automation wave would definitely help push forward human productivity to a great extent and the increasing proliferation of AI and robots is actually a great boon. “Artificial Intelligence is making technology more helpful and intuitive. And this is most evident in the smart-phone market. A phone that can learn your language, count your calories, answer your questions or recognize what a things look like,” says Jetking’s Bharwani.
India and automation

India too needs to join the rest of the world in pushing its way forward in the field of artificial intelligence. “China has progressed in AI-based research; India should also view AI as a critical element of national security strategy. India needs to be prepared for the digitalised future. Establishing AI-ready infrastructure, digital services and digital literacy is thus necessary to prepare India’s jobs and skills markets for an AI-based future. The bold urban initiative by government called ‘Smart Cities’ is also giving a hint to the public to stay ready,” says Bharwani.

The skills, experience and insight that a human being can provide are irreplaceable. Soft skills are the skills of the future. Machines and robots would only be taking over those jobs which are suitable for them.

As Bharwani says, “I believe the time is not far when the robots takeover workplaces and hence it is necessary to know how humans are required to handle them. AI is no more a toddler. Many AI researchers believe that the day will ultimately come. The question is, are humans ready for it?”

Artificial Intelligence can Empower Existing Education System

When discussing artificial intelligence, we form pictures of hi-tech machines and robots that are as efficient as the human mind. Amidst all this, the basic fact that AI is nothing but an advancement in technology is forgotten.

Today, AI has left no sector untouched by its innovations and novelty. Its contributions to the educational sector, especially, have been most beneficial because education forms the basis of all knowledge and progress.

Therefore, empowering and updating educational systems with AI has resulted in better impartment of knowledge and thorough and worthy evaluation of assessments by making them less of a blackbox.

For example, if a child is unable to grasp the concept of fractions, the system can look at whether the child was absent when that concept was taught, whether the teacher has historically had issues teaching this concept or whether the child is weak in prerequisites that would help him understand the concept.
Artificial intelligence, with its digital and dynamic nature, is progressing at an accelerated pace. A profound impact is also seen in the nature of services within the education sector.

Thus, we can conclude that the use of AI in the education sector, especially at the school level, has not only helped in easing the administrative burden but has transformed the realm of teaching and learning as well.
With AI, it has become possible to explore more and discover the vast depths of the education sector effectively.

Why B-School is initiating teaching Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

There is no doubt that Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) are the two hot buzzwords right now. Examples of how AI and ML based disruptive practices are replacing traditional businesses on one hand while creating new business opportunities, on the other hand, are many.
In a nutshell, AI is the broader concept of machines being able to carry out tasks in a ‘smart’ way while ML prescribes the set of such ‘smart’ rules that the computer figures itself out.

2 lakh new jobs coming up in Artificial Intelligence sector
It is no exaggeration to say the current and the future belongs to AI and ML. It is estimated that in USA, there are more than 10,000 positions available at top employers across the country and additionally, the country is estimated to have 2, 50,000 open data science jobs by 2024.

Elsewhere — in EU, Canada and China — the demand for AI related jobs are not only in high demand, they are a few notches above the median salary.

India too is not far behind other countries in terms of AI hiring. Some estimates expect a 60 per cent rise by this year due to increasing adoption of automation, and the related IT industry will require 50 per cent more workforces equipped with digital skills.

All this translates to around 2 lakh new jobs this year.

Educational institutes need to provide future AI employees
Obviously, where the demand is there, educational institutes are expected to be at the forefront in bridging the gap. The question is — why are AI and ML finding its way into the B-school curriculum when it appears that AI and ML are still the forte of computer scientists, programmers and mathematicians?

Almost all of the top 20 business schools in India are now offering specialisations in Business Analytics while some of them are offering specialisation tracks in AI ML.

The answer is evident if we closely inspect two things:
One – what does AI ML typically do or can do?
Two — what are the expected roles of business schools?

Decision-making based on data inputs isn’t anything new: Benefits of AI and ML
To understand what AI and ML bring, we must acknowledge that decision-making based on data inputs isn’t new. Indeed, the traditional courses offered in B-schools related to decision sciences used computational algorithms as well as statistical models to solve problems.

Most of these algorithms are over a century old. However, our getting to a solution was limited by the way we deemed fit to go about it.

For example, logistic regressions, the favourite technique for many to solve binary classification problems (problems that needed us to correctly predict one group from the other), required us not only to identify the factors but also how they must be related to each other.

Undiscovered and hidden patterns in the data eluded us. ML solved this by letting the algorithms learn on its own, from the data and from itself the best route to classify.
Thus, the various boosting models, ensemble techniques as well as neural network models connected dots in the data which improved upon the results traditional algorithms could not.

The second finesse AI and ML brought are the unstructured data. This is what defines them and has not only gives us additional insights, it helps us address and tackle issues which otherwise we struggled with.
We now solve traditional problems using data obtained from video cameras, speeches, texts, social media interactions, images, satellite images etc. We no longer need to only focus on historical data to gauge stock market sentiments, often analysing texts in shareholder reports gives us better accuracy.
To estimate the footfalls in shopping malls, traditional survey methods are getting replaced by images of cars in car parks, to design agricultural forward contracts, satellite images of agricultural plots provide invaluable information.

Simply put, AI and ML have allowed us to access, process and utilize data in an efficient way to solve complex problems – both traditional as well as those posed in the new ecosystem. This is where B-schools fit in, almost by design.

B-school curriculums have always pride themselves for creating efficient decision makers. Managers are expected to decide and then execute their decisions. Often, such decisions must be made based on limited data and experience and yet must be made quickly.

It is not surprising, therefore, that some of those decisions face ex-post criticism, and perhaps rightly so. Decisions based on AI-ML are likely to reduce such errors.
For one, most of the unstructured data are not open to manipulations, and two, analysis based on that data reduces the human bias largely.

What is missing with AI and ML: the power of human intuition
However, there is an intrinsic part of human decision making that can’t be separated — intuition.
To a machine, a data is a set of numbers arranged in rows and columns where the column headings have no meaning! To a manager, the column headings are the most important. It is his training and experience that allows him to retain what is essential and cull out the rest.
Unlike a data scientist, whose journey with ML techniques is almost entirely about the column headings, he can trade-off accuracy for insight.

For example, an ML technique may always pick up ethnicity of an individual to determine whether he is worthy of receiving a loan, but a manager can use insights to exclude ethnicity as it may violate some fundamental principles!

A successful AI ML programme in B-schools must ensure that this balance stays. Curriculums must focus on ML techniques complimenting the managerial decision and not substitute them.
While Indian business schools were reasonably slow in riding the business analytics wave, it appears they want to remain ahead of the AI ML curve this time.

AI to enhance new job and employment engagement

Contrary to popular belief, Artificial Intelligence (AI) will have a “positive impact” on workplaces as it would create new job roles besides enhancing employee engagement and decision-making, a report said on September 6.
Artificial Intelligence to diversify human thinking
According to a Tata Communications’ study based on inputs from 120 global business leaders, Artificial Intelligence will diversify human thinking rather than replace it.

Artificial Intelligent: Statistics
As per the study, 90 per cent leaders agree that cognitive diversity is important for management

75 per cent respondents expect AI to create new roles for their employees
93 per cent believe that AI will enhance decision-making
AI to help people become more productive
“While AI will replace some tasks, it will also create new ways of working, new jobs and new roles in companies. AI will also help people as well as organisations become more productive. It’s not man vs machine, rather man and machine working together,” Tata Communications CEO and MD Vinod Kumar told PTI.

The report further noted that Artificial Intelligence has the potential to assess each employee’s skills and innovation priorities, and suggest activities to spark creative thinking throughout the organisational hierarchy.
This can democratise the creative process and increase engagement of all workers.

More focus on communication and innovation
AI will also free employees from most tedious repetitive tasks, allowing them to focus more on communication and innovation.
“Work will move from being task-based to strategic, enabling workers to enhance their curiosity and creative thinking,” it added.
According to Professor Ken Goldberg, a leading AI researcher at UC Berkeley, there is fear now that AI will surpass human thinking and that machines are superior to humans.

“Robots and AI are not going to take away this creative, insightful, empathetic aspect of almost every job,” Goldberg noted.

The Promise of AI is in Assistive Intelligence

This is a contributed piece by Francois Ajenstat, chief product officer at Tableau Software and has been written in response to a recent piece by our senior staff writer, Dan Swinhoe

As artificial intelligence surges to the forefront of modern society, research and debate swirls around the power and role it should play. More often than not, a cloud of skepticism looms over the topic of security of jobs in the workforce. However, if we consider AI as assistive intelligence rather than an asteroid on a collision course, humans can take advantage of the opportunities presented through its advancement. With this approach, humans enhance, rather than replace skills, leading to increased benefit from technology and improvements in quality of life.
Applications of AI have the ability to empower workers and increase efficiencies across industries and every aspect of the supply chain. To put this into perspective, a recent study from PwC argues that machines will “increase productivity by up to 14.3% by 2030” and the UK’s GDP could be up to 10.3% higher in 2030, equivalent to an additional £232bn ($307bn).

Yet the advantages of AI are not exclusive to a macroeconomic level. Benefits also extend to the individual level by fundamentally changing employee responsibilities. Workers are liberated from daily mundane and menial tasks to explore a higher level of thinking and creativity, ultimately expanding their job roles. Of course, this in turn will translate into positives for their employers as a more engaged workforce leads to increased sales, productivity and employee retention.

In fact, a recent Deloitte Insights study of workers in the public sector showed that many tasks could actually be handled through automation. The study found that documenting and recording information is the most time-consuming for employees, sucking 10% of work hours, which could be saved using technology like AI.

However, AI is not a replacement for tasks simply because they are time-consuming. The same Deloitte study concludes that tasks, like caring for patients, simply cannot be replaced by AI. For example, cognitive technologies cannot assess a patient’s mood or administer medicine, and therefore are not advanced enough to replace the role of workers carrying out such responsibilities. Currently, the reach of AI extends only to enabling human workers with more of the time and resources needed to provide exceptional patient care. Ultimately, AI compliments human intelligence, enabling workers to focus on tasks that require insights and experience beyond what goes into an algorithm.

This brings us to the fact that true business value comes from the capitalisation of uniquely human skills. Individuals fluent in the language of data are already in high demand across the corporate world. While machine learning backed algorithms and AI assist decision makers in accessing and analysing relevant data, some tasks are abstract or situational and require an amount of intuition and experience to make the best decisions. Humans are uniquely qualified to ensure the encoded assumptions are reasonable and then to ask meaningful follow-up questions that link answers back to business problems.

While AI can find unexpected outliers and identify patterns within the data, human analysis plays a vital role in gathering useful insights from what they find on the screen. This is especially true when those problems lie in industries such as marketing, where success is often related to one’s ability to make a personal connection between brands and consumers – human to human. AI can be used to sort through data and identify a target audience, but only humans have the emotional intelligence to create a story that will resonate with the right audiences and deliver results.

Just as any mammal adapts to a change in its environment, so too will the human race. Machines have yet to match humans in regards to solving contextual business problems with big data. They lack the ability to draw from personal experience, context, emotion and the ingenuity required to go that next step. Exploring this scope is therefore paramount in acquiring job security and increasing workers’ purpose.

The debate surrounding AI will only intensify with its continued expansion. As with any groundbreaking development, the fear of disrupting the status quo is unavoidable. However, disruption does not have to equal destruction.
What matters is how we respond and find new ways to thrive alongside technology.

Southeast Asia Lag Behind in Security

Why is ASEAN at risk?
“You have quite a wide variation in terms of where these countries are in their digital journey so that’s why the numbers you see in terms of under investment [are so different],” says Gareth Pereira, a principal at AT Kearney.

“There’s a wide disparity and that’s partly the reason why you see this region lagging behind.”

It may not come as a surprise that Singapore tops the list for cybersecurity. The city-state has invested eye-watering sums of money into smart city initiatives and digital industries. If cybersecurity was passed over, then it would be staring at a truly disastrous situation.

Singapore spent 0.22% of its GDP on cybersecurity in 2017, the third highest spender globally after Israel and the UK. Malaysia spent 0.08%, putting it in ninth place, well behind Japan, South Korea, and the US.

On the flipside, ASEAN countries like Brunei and Laos are much further behind, which drags down the average for ASEAN. These countries are not only spending less on security but their overall network preparedness is lower than their neighbors.

Pereira anticipates that this under investment “will persist over time” and is unlikely to be fixed too quickly. While ASEAN has a consensus-minded approach and will agree on matters like capacity building, it is down to each country to make a move respectively.

“We don’t see the sort of legislative framework that the EU has so that becomes a bit of an issue,” explains Pereira.

“You get countries like Singapore and Malaysia trying to push the envelope in terms of what the other countries should be doing but there’s no unifying framework in place in ASEAN to look at national strategy around cybersecurity, to look at legislation, to look at governance. There’s nothing to monitor progress in this area.”
In Europe, there’s the GDPR, which comes into effect in May and will hand out staggering fines to companies with poor security.

“I don’t think fines is the right way to go about it,” Pereira responds. “I think companies need to cognizant a little bit more about the value at risk for them.”
The costs of cyberattacks are much more prevalent and known now, so a case needs to be made internally for greater cybersecurity spending, which in the long term will lead to a greater return on investment.

As the cost of cyberattacks starts to impact the bottom line, the very top echelons of the c-suite will have no choice but to take notice. It’s no longer the realm of the IT department and CEOs are being held to account. After the infamous Equifax breach last year, its CEO Richard Smith resigned. Those at the top must pay attention.

What is the attack surface?
All the obvious targets are at risk: critical infrastructure, banking, telecoms, public utilities, healthcare, and transport systems.

The proliferation of IoT and connected devices in both the enterprise and among consumers has opened up a whole host of new threats and risks too. Again, Singapore has been the most advanced here – deploying sensors collecting huge amounts of data – but Jakarta, Ho Chi Minh, and Bangkok have all launched their own smart city programs. This has opened more avenues for attack.

“In the last few years, the transportation sector has seen the proliferation of IoT and connected cars, which have the potential to be ubiquitously connected and form a far larger attack surface for DDOS – multiple times larger than what we have seen in the Mirai worm example,” said one transport authority official quoted in the report, referring to the botnet that took down hundreds of sites through DDOS attacks in late 2016.

This digital connection between long running infrastructure and new technologies highlights the need for better coordination between the public and private sector.
To this end, AT Kearney has proposed a Rapid Action Cybersecurity Framework. This involves creating new agencies responsible for cybersecurity awareness and coordination among different sectors and setting standards that everyone follows. Singapore has taken an approach like this.
“Let’s say there is an attack on a bank in Singapore, this is brought to the notice of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, which alerts all the other banks. In future, it’s that process of collecting information and sharing it around which gets you better prepared to deal with emerging threats.”

How about the rest of Asia?
With all this talk of ASEAN, you may have forgotten about the rest of Asia. The continent’s biggest economies are a little more aware of the risks and taking action. China is obviously a regular topic of conversation but that’s usually on the offensive front. On the defensive, the Chinese government has instituted its own GDPR-like law.

In the approach to the winter Olympics, South Korea set up a cyber defense team to assuage cyber threats. Similarly, as Japan prepares for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, the government has established a separate agency for monitoring potential attacks on critical infrastructure.

But Japan and other developed countries share one thing with ASEAN – skills shortages. Japan is now issuing its own agenda for stimulating IT security employment in the economy. The number of professionals coming out of universities is “simply inadequate” says Pereira and will need to speed up in order to meet demand. He points to specific shortages in behavioral and forensics analytics.

Skills and money alone won’t solve the problem though.
“It’s important where you’re spending that money, are you spending it largely on firewalls or are you spending it on other aspects, on what we call the cybersecurity lifecycle, which is how do you recover?” says Pereira. Attitude and approach will be key: “What is your response mechanism?”