May 5, 2022

The popularity of Artificial intelligence (AI) is growing at a rapid pace, especially after the pandemic. Hence, disruptive technologies such as robotics, Virtual Reality (VR), Virtual Worlds, or Artificial Intelligence (AI) are completely changing the way we used to live! Though AI is yet to touch the sky.

However, you might have come across AI technologies even today. A perfect example of AI technology is virtual assistants like Alexa, Cortana, or Siri. In Malaysia, almost all industries are able to incorporate AI for their own benefit.

McKinsey reported that around 50% of the work time in Malaysia is spent on doing tasks that are highly automatable. Therefore, the impact of AI is evident.

In Malaysia, AI alone is able to create 6 million new jobs by 2030. Thus, there is a need for long-term planning in order to execute AI technologies and to create new skill sets so that they are inculcated as the demand arises!

So, let’s have a look at the top 20 AI trends leading Malaysia into the future. Here we go!

1. Collaboration of AI and Cloud

AI is all set to play a very important role in the adoption of cloud services in the coming years. Through AI technology, it will become easier to monitor the cloud applications and keep a thorough check on the available amount of data, no matter how big it might be. AI and the cloud will collaborate even more.

1. IT and AI Solutions

AI solutions for the field of IT would increase in the coming years. AI solutions through which identifying the IT problem becomes easy while rectifying it thereby will see a surge in development. It will help in reducing downtime. Moreover, the organization would be able to spend most of its time in activities that are actually quite complex and require human intervention.

1. AIOps Solutions to become extremely Popular

Due to the growth in the IT industry, the complexities of the systems have increased a lot. Therefore, the vendors are asking for platform solutions that would combine more than one monitoring discipline, for example, infrastructure, applications, or networks. IT teams would be able to redefine their processes in a better way through AIOps solutions. As AIOps solutions are incorporated, more and more cross-team coordination would be there to be seen!

1. AI to Assist in Structuring of Data

Structuring of data is always an issue, especially when you are dealing with a large amount of data. So, machine learning processes or robotics would definitely delve in here to make the lives of Malaysians easier than ever. With the help of AI, you will forever forget the hassle of unstructured data.

1. AI and the Growing Need for Workers

As AI is rapidly growing in terms of popularity, the skillset is missing from Malaysia. Although universities are introducing courses for AI. Yet there is a huge gap to fill due to excessive demand for skillful workers. Therefore, the government of Malaysia should launch several programs to help curb the need for an AI workforce.

1. IT Industry and Adoption of AI

Within the IT industry, there has been rapid adoption of AI technology. In the near future, AI will be used on a large scale in the IT industry. Through AI, a company would be able to generate ROI in real-time. Hence, the companies would be able to see their progress in real-time which is one of the biggest successes for AI technology.

1. AI Ethics on Focus

In the coming few years, AI would be used to fight against major worldwide problems, ensure economic growth, and stimulate diversity. As AI ethics are in focus, the major problems for the companies are transparency of data and fairness of algorithms.

1. Augmented Processes to become a Reality

Augmented processes have already shown a glimpse of it. However, there is still a bigger picture out there. Hence, companies would go one step ahead in optimizing their augmented businesses. Through AI, software development processes could be made easier as well. Fostering a data-driven culture is very important for sustainable AI practices. Moreover, this trend is here to rule!

1. AI to Become More Clear

Though AI has seen its heights. Yet a few people find it quite hard to understand the diverse subject of AI. Nonetheless, in the coming future, AI would become more explainable through a variety of modules and theories. As more and more universities would offer courses related to AI, the subject would become easier to acknowledge.

1. Voice-Oriented and Language-Oriented AI

Voice-oriented and language-oriented AI is seen in the form of customer care. It is bound to increase its depth, delivering high-quality solutions regarding a wide variety of issues without the need of any human.

1. AI and Security

Security issues have been increasing like a wildfire. AI is the answer to all the worries. AI technologies have been implemented on voice and face recognition methods in order to make the technology more and more secure. AI security is able to eliminate all sorts of security breaches.

1. AI and Real-Time Video Processing

AI ensures minimum latency and high-speed video processing through which streaming achieves a whole different level. In times to come, AI would surely improve here! Real-time video processing takes a lot of time and errors occur quite often. But now all the pains related to real-time video processing would vanish. Just rely on AI technology and you will never be disappointed.

1. AI for Content Creation

There have been a number of AI tools through which you are able to gather ideas for your next content strategy. Moreover, there have been AI tools through which you get an entire piece of content, fully customized according to your needs and requirements.

1. AI and Chatbots

Chatbots have partially eliminated the need for humans, thanks to such powerful response of the AI. Modern AI models are able to generate text, speech, and even video. Chatbots are designed in such a way that they try to understand the problems of the people and supply an apt answer. In most cases, the chatbots correctly answer the question. Nonetheless, the technology will improve.

1. AI and Inspection

The latest trend in AI in Malaysia is computer vision inspection. The AI technology ensures to check the products in order to find any minor or major faults in them in terms of quality standards and security compliance. The task of inspection is quite hard for human beings. Therefore, you must take advantage of the technology and give the credit where it is due!

1. AI changing the Medical Industry

The medical industry is rapidly developing and AI is coming into play. AI-driven solutions help a lot in CT scans, lab scans, tests, prescribing medications, and in a number of other important objectives. During covid-19, AI worked flawlessly in assisting the on-site doctors. It analyzed threats and rendered quality solutions to make things work!

1. Diversity in AI

AI has become extremely diverse. Still, there is a long way to go. There is no such gender or racial bias in AI. Every person from every part of the world is equally contributing their best efforts to AI. Moreover, the diversity in AI would only increase as the impact of AI would cross different borders.

1. No-Coding AI Platforms

No-coding AI platforms have enabled small companies to acquire powerful technologies that were earlier only available to big companies. Developing a code takes a lot of time in writing it and then rechecking it in case of any error. However, no-code platforms have made life easier as everything happens fairly quicker than ever without any hassles. Moreover, the cost is also quite meager.

1. AI and Cybersecurity

Cybersecurity has become a huge issue as technology is maximizing. Hacking is an inevitable problem that grows more and more. AI is playing a huge role in eliminating cyber threats by constantly analyzing the traffic, recognizing patterns, and developing smart algorithms to tackle all the cybersecurity issues. However, the problem is not fully resolved. But in times to come, the hope will only grow!

1. AI and Autonomous Vehicles

Vehicles are also becoming smart and powerful as they no longer require the need of any human driver. cars are now becoming autonomous, thanks to AI technology. Earlier you needed a driver to drive the car and concentrate on the road. Meanwhile, he/she was not able to do anything else.

Nonetheless, nowadays there has been an influx of autonomous vehicles that are driven on their own.

And don’t worry, such cars would also save you from accidents, all thanks to AI technology.

The Bottom Line

Such AI trends have been coming into play in Malaysia and in every other part of the world. There is no stopping it. The AI trends would only increase with time and there is no doubt about that. So, while having a look at all these current trends, do let us know if you are already looking forward to the future or not?

Cybersecurity is a huge concern for companies as sensitive data could be breached. Customer’s data is very important and should be kept with extreme care and protection. Technology is becoming more and more complex with each passing day. Therefore, the task of keeping the data protected becomes even harder.

In Malaysia, cyber-attacks have inflicted a huge cause of concern as identity theft has made Malaysians’ life a living hell. Every other person in Malaysia goes through a security breach once in their lifetime and it is definitely a worrisome thing to consider!

Therefore, due to the major cybersecurity issues in the country, the cybersecurity insurance market is definitely a ray of hope in times of skepticism. For Risk Management, the companies need to consider cybersecurity insurance in order to minimize the cybersecurity threats.

What is Cybersecurity Insurance?

Cybersecurity insurance or cyber liability insurance is similar to all the other types of insurance. It would protect you against the damages incurred due to the cybersecurity attacks. Within cybersecurity insurance, you will be offered with several types of packages that you can choose according to your needs.

A simple cybersecurity insurance would cover first-party, third-party, and cyber extortion. However, many other cybersecurity insurance companies would provide you with cell phone protection coverage that would constantly keep a check on cell phones or on-the-spot threat management.

Nowadays software and hardware insurance are also getting popular, considering that the hackers are always looking for one open door to make an entry.

Insurance policies vary according to the size of the company. For SMBs (Small and Medium Businesses), the policies would be different. Similarly, for mid-size and large operational businesses, the policies would be different. Hence, you need to be clearly aware regarding such things while applying for a policy.

Before getting cybersecurity insurance in Malaysia, make sure you have studied your business model in full detail. You need to think about how vulnerable your business is. Plus, you need the policy to be tailor-made according to your industry. Otherwise, there is no use getting cybersecurity insurance.

Cybersecurity Opportunities and Challenges in Malaysia

As mentioned above, there are a number of challenges faced by Malaysia in terms of cybersecurity. However, when there are challenges, there are opportunities as well for the cybersecurity insurance companies. The major challenges in cybersecurity for Malaysia are given below:

• Bank Card Fraud: Around 88 percent of the people in Malaysia are concerned regarding their bank card being used fraudulently or other people obtaining bank card details.
• Identity Theft: Around 87 percent are worried regarding unauthorized access to personal information.
• Hacking/Virus: Hacking and viruses are quite common in Malaysia with 77 percent of Malaysians are concerned about unsolicited emails, viruses, phishing attacks, and hacking.

Unisys Asia conducted a survey in which it was highlighted that during 2014, the main concern for Malaysia was threats of war, terrorism, or natural disasters such as floods or earthquakes. However, now the concern for Malaysians has shifted to cybersecurity. The fear of consumers about cyber attacks is quite real. They fear their personal data being stolen and sold on the dark web or getting trapped into phishing scams. Hence, cybersecurity insurance is an opportunity to safeguard the data.

Dr. Haji Amirudin Abdul Wahab, CEO of Cybersecurity Malaysia shared that the cybersecurity concerns for Malaysia are a part of economic and national security challenges created through an online environment where everything is shared online, eliminating borders. However, being aware about the challenges provides an opportunity to tackle them in the right way and take a proactive approach to get the job done.

Therefore, Cybersecurity Malaysia always remains one step ahead in reporting cyber attacks in advance so that the companies could protect them beforehand.

Moreover, cybersecurity insurance is also a great way of nullifying the cyber threats as soon as possible!

Dr. Haji also mentioned that Malaysia lags behind in production of experts, despite a huge growth in the cybersecurity sector. During the last year, Malaysia reported a shortage of 7,917 experts. However, the country is looking forward to producing around 20,000 experts till 2025.

Also, there would be around 9,020 cybersecurity positions that would need to be filled till 2026. Thus, there is a lot of scope around the cybersecurity sector. Nonetheless, there will be a huge demand for cybersecurity graduates who are able to render quality work and fulfill the needs at this point in time.

There are a lot of vacancies within the cybersecurity insurance market that need to be filled immediately.

Nonetheless, there is still a huge vacuum left due to the unavailability of quality graduates that would be sufficient for the cybersecurity insurance market. As the technology is getting updated each day, the requirement is shifting towards producing experts that have practical knowhow rather than theory work.

The attention is given to students to work in an open environment. Rather than working to acquire skills in closed rooms. The ability to harness skills is only possible through hands-on work and applications.

Sectors in Malaysia that require Cybersecurity Insurance

As mentioned above, not every company in Malaysia would want to opt for cybersecurity insurance. However, a few important sectors that should opt for cybersecurity insurance are SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprises). SMEs are responsible for a large chunk of production of gross products in Malaysia. Hence, they are the real targets of the cyber attackers who are willing to get a single chance.

Moreover, SMEs lack a full-proof plan to tackle such attacks. Therefore, cybersecurity insurance is a MUST in such sectors. According to a study conducted by Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) in 2020, 79% of SMEs in Malaysia faced more than one cyber attack which is a serious cause of concern.

In Malaysia, the digital economy is boosting every other day. With the growing digital economy, the threats on the cyber environment are pretty accurate. On the other hand, SMEs are constantly adopting digital technology in order to render the best of their services. Hence, they come under a lot of scanner due to this move.

SMEs can’t be overlooked in Malaysia as they are the main source of boosting the economy. So, safe measures need to be taken through cybersecurity insurance in order to keep the economy growing.

Cybersecurity insurance sector is flourishing with each passing day. A lot of investment is being pumped into this sector as of now. The spending on the cybersecurity insurance market in 2019 was around RM10.4bil. Nonetheless, the figure is only going to increase in the upcoming years.

Benefits of acquiring Cybersecurity Insurance

There are a number of benefits that you can get through cybersecurity insurance. Especially, in Malaysia, the task is to solidify SMEs in order to create a strong network that is nearly impossible to breach. Let’s have a look at the benefits:

• Legal Expenses

Cybersecurity insurance would assist you in covering the legal expenses. In case of a cyber-attack, you and your employees would get full coverage for the legal expenses. Often companies do not have funds to open legal cases. But a cybersecurity insurance policy would help you here so that you can offer a legal battle.

• Loss Reimbursement

In case of a data breach, the operations of your business would be disrupted. Hence, causing you the loss of time and money. So, a cybersecurity insurance policy would reimburse the loss of income during such times. Plus, all sorts of added costs would be covered in the policy as well that are incurred due to the aftermath of the incident.

• Defense against Cyber Extortion

As important data is stolen from the organizations, the hackers demand a huge amount of money in return for the data. Such cyber-attacks are increasing day by day. So, companies must seek to get a cyber insurance policy for their own good and to protect themselves against cyber extortion.

• Forensic Help

While your company is under-attack, you will need to identify the root cause of the attack as well as the amount of damage done to your organization. So, the right information would make sure that your funds are quickly generated. While a few companies also offer to stay in touch with you 24/7 for constant support.

• Coverage apart from General Cybersecurity Insurance Policy

A general cybersecurity insurance policy would provide you with several other benefits apart from a written agreement. If you ask them to provide your company with cyber coverage, you will have peace of mind for a greater part of time. In case of an attack, your company’s data would be protected as data is always worth more than physical assets or money. So, plan ahead and apply for a cybersecurity insurance policy to save yourself from huge hassles.

The Bottom Line

In Malaysia, the digital economy is booming and so are the intentions of cyber criminals. They are always looking to breach into the systems for making a fortune of their own. Never let them get away with your precious data and information. A cybersecurity insurance policy does a great job.

Hyperscale data centers are known to move billions of bits of data in a single second, making the connectivity flawless and super-fast. Talking about Malaysia, tech giants are making it clear to build humongous hyperscale data centers in Malaysia. Malaysia’s population is 32 billion with land 35% bigger than the United Kingdom. Hence, opportunities for cloud hyperscale galore here!

Already, data center providers and cloud operators such as Alibaba Cloud and Microsoft Azure are established here and are planning to expand even further.

One of the Malaysia Data Center Market Report stated that the market for data centers in Malaysia is likely to increase by $800 million in 2025. Hence, there have been constant talks regarding making Malaysia the main hub for data centers, replacing the neighbor Singapore.

However, it is yet to find out whether Malaysia is a good spot for hyperscale companies!

Is Malaysia worth it for hyperscale companies?

Henrick Choo, CEO of NTT Ltd. in Malaysia explained the importance of Malaysia in terms of making it a data center hub. He said that Malaysia is an excellent location in Southeast Asia for data centers. With abundant resources available here and relaxed governmental policies, the country seems a perfect fit for the data center infrastructure.

Apart from that, Malaysia holds another bunch of advantages such as low electricity costs, an abundance of skilled workers, cheaper construction costs, and a low price of land as compared to the other countries in Southeast Asia.

Malaysia is also a great location for NTT without any single doubt. Its data center campus has grown to five more data centers in Cyberjaya. Another data center, CBJ5 was launched just last year.

Choo also stated that the development of Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC Malaysia) and Cyberjaya especially have made an open ecosystem for the business community to grow more and more. Cyberjaya in Malaysia was developed with the thought to replicate Silicon Valley in the US.

Hyperscale & Renewable Energy

Hyperscale is definitely a demanding technology to play rightfully as it would require huge power to operate in the right manner. Hence, Chiew Kok Hin who is the CEO of AIMS highlighted the increasing number of data centers and their potential impact on the power grid.

So, he identified that hyperscalers are the main reason why companies must tap into renewable energy in order to shed the burden off the power grid. Growing power demands are not ideal for an environment.

Therefore, Malaysia’s efforts in projects of renewable energy are quite satisfying and make Malaysia a perfect place for hyperscale data centers. Currently, renewables are contributing around 18 percent to fulfilling the country’s power demands. Moreover, the authorities are planning to move the number to a whopping 31 percent by 2025 and 40 percent by 2030. Such an aggressive move will very much push the data center providers to invest in Malaysia even more.

Nonetheless, Chiew also said that Malaysia’s initiatives regarding renewable energy do look promising. But directly piping renewable energy to data centers is not an easy task.

He further added that the data center power demands increase at a rapid pace as the IT requirements are increased or colocation project activation. However, renewable energy is mostly used for pre-designed load management.

Considering these shortcomings of renewable energy, it is important to source accurate renewable energy power farms to extract energy for the data centers. While giving an example, Chiew said that solar energy varies constantly, sometimes due to rain and sometimes due to excessive cloud cover.

In order to deliver energy to the data center optimally and when it is needed, it is vital to understand that huge energy storage systems would be required to deliver when the demand is there. In this regard, hydroelectric power plants are less affected. But the locations that are fine might not be close to cities or industrial areas.

So, another solution for it is to obtain renewable energy certificates. Chiew said that they are working on obtaining certificates. He said that they are currently studying the feasibility of renewable energy by acquiring solar energy systems or by acquiring renewable energy certification that would be globally recognized in order to promote the growth and usage of renewable energy.

Malaysia Proving its Worth against its Counterpart Singapore

Singapore’s data center moratorium is responsible for the growth in the construction of data centers in Malaysia, according to both Choo and Chiew. For example, Singapore-based Bridge Data Center highlighted its intention to build a Singapore Data Center, in 2018. After 3 years of having no Singapore facility as of now, it made an announcement to build a Greenfield Facility in Malaysia in order to express approval for the two facilities that it had acquired already in Malaysia.

Choo mentioned that Singapore, undoubtedly, has been an ICT and financial hub in Southeast Asia for the past 30 years. It has been the main front for the industry. However, the demand has been constantly increasing. Cost to market, labor demands, data recovery, and network diversity, all are increasing due to which there is a need for an alternate hyperscale data center hub.

Hence, Malaysia proved its worth and ticked all the boxes to become an alternate gateway.

The welcoming environment and cost-effectiveness here in Malaysia are the primary indicators for the ability to hyperscale in Malaysia. Therefore, it is actually a good location for hyperscale data center providers to further expand their operations.

That being said, Malaysia will remain to be an alternate location in Southeast Asia and will not replace any geo-location. The goal would be to make Malaysia a complementary piece to improve a company’s overall architecture plan. Choo said.

On the other hand, Chiew praised the connectivity power of Malaysia with the rest of Southeast Asia. He said that Malaysia would complement Singapore by providing regional connections in order to meet the growing local needs.

Problems in the Connectivity

Previously, in Malaysia, the complaints about slow internet were pretty regular. The slow internet connectivity was due to a small number of submarine cables landing in Malaysia. However, the complaints regarding slow internet have been resolved to a great extent. Nonetheless, a new problem is looking to threaten the popularity of data centers in Malaysia. The problem is “Cabotage exemption”.

The problem was identified in November 2020.

Cabotage is basically the right to operate by sea, air, or other transportation in a particular territory.

States always apply cabotage in their own waters in order to safeguard their local locations. But in 2019, Malaysia applied for exemption from cabotage. Hence, foreign-flagged vessels were then allowed to repair undersea cables. It allowed us to speed up the undersea fiber projects. Plus, options and capacity were also increased beyond a single local provider to carry on the repairs every time.

Canceling the cabotage exemption would take the time back to the previous status quo. Plus, there would be a requirement for the telecoms to apply for a domestic shipping license before they start working and it can take up to 100 days.

The repeal is forced by the government as mentioned by the detractors. They said that it is Malaysia’s revenge for the exclusion from a number of subsea cables. However, the Malaysian shipowners’ Association highlighted that Malaysia’s exclusion from various subsea projects was due to the little or no investment by the local telecommunication players as they were not fully participating.

Nonetheless, the decision is yet to be taken and nothing is finalized.

A Triumph for the Region

Though Covid-19 was actually lethal in taking lives. Yet, it made clear that going digital would be the future for consumers as well as for businesses. As everyone witnessed, the digital demand increased dramatically during the pandemic. Hence, data centers started to grow in popularity.

Chinese tech giants entered Malaysia and were always looking to expand their operations worldwide.

The battle for a regional digital hub has already started. The government of Malaysia created and showcased a blueprint known as “MyDigital” to highlight itself as the regional leader in the fresh digital era.

The blueprint is all about increasing local data centers in Malaysia in order to support hyperscale cloud computing and a government-driven cloud-first strategy. Considering this fact, tech giants like Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and Telekom Malaysia were given permission to build hyperscale data centers in Malaysia.

The bottom Line

Nevertheless, considering the amazing growth in the hyperscale data centers, we can surely say that Malaysia would do extremely well in the race. Chiew stated that as Singapore’s and Malaysia’s data center capabilities would improve, so will the human resources and other technical abilities would increase. Therefore, the interconnection of skills and capabilities would make Southeast Asia grow further.

Moreover, such growth would accelerate the strength of Southeast Asia to become one of the fastest-growing markets for hyperscale data centers in the whole world. So, data would easily be handled, thanks to the hyperscale culture!

The rising growth of technology in Malaysia has brought along cybersecurity threats that have kept on increasing with each passing day. Malaysia has gone through so much trouble in terms of cybersecurity that this concern has surpassed the concern of physical threats. Malaysians are now quite skeptical about sharing their personal information through the mediums of the internet.

Accenture Malaysia conducted a survey in which it was highlighted that around 40% of security breaches are indirect. Such breaches take place due to weak links in the supply chain and in the overall business world.

The main problem regarding supply chain attacks is that they are often overlooked. However, if enough time is given to the hackers, there could be massive destruction. Such attacks target vendors and suppliers instead of targeting the whole business.

Therefore, it becomes quite hard to detect and eliminate such attacks, especially when the vendors or the suppliers have not adopted promising cybersecurity practices, completely annulling the use of modern tools to fight cyber-attacks.

One of the examples of a supply chain cyber attack is the SITA data breach in which more than 580,000 records were exposed from Malaysia Airlines’ Frequent Flyer program. Finnair, Air New Zealand, and many other airlines reported similar attacks, exposing a large number of records of the consumers.

Singapore Airlines shared data with a company known as Star Alliance. It was the place from where the cyber-attack on the supply chain originated, making the entire supply chain vulnerable.

There are a number of similar supply chain cyber-attacks that have wreaked havoc on businesses.

What is a Supply Chain Cyber-Attack?

There are quite a few names of a supply chain attack such as a third-party attack, value-chain attack, or backdoor breach. Having said that, a supply chain attack is when an attacker is able to access a certain business through indirect channels such as vendors or suppliers or the supply chain.

Sometimes, supply chains could be quite huge. Therefore, it becomes difficult to trace the attackers.

In the past, an unsecured supplier or the vendor in a supply chain was the main culprit that was the reason for the initiation of a supply chain cyber-attack. Nonetheless, today, software supply chain cyber-attacks pose the greatest concern. The software supply chains are quite susceptible to attacks because modern software is not written from scratch.

Instead, open-source code or third-party APIs are taken into account in order to save time. But it can prove to be very dangerous for an entire supply chain.

Today, a single software project consists of around 203 dependencies. So, if any of the apps consist of even one of the compromised dependencies, then any business who would download the app from that vendor will be exposed to a cyber-attack. Hence, the number of victims grows like this!

Moreover, the software is reused. Therefore, the vulnerability would exist till the lifecycle of the software.

How Do You Detect and Stop a Supply Chain Cyber-Attack?

In December 2021, a total of 10,016 cases of cyber-attacks were reported to Cyber999. Cyber999 is a cyber security incident response center that is operated by MyCERT (Malaysia Computer Emergency Response Team). According to another study, it was highlighted that Malaysia could lose around RM51 billion from 2020-to 2024 due to cybersecurity threats. Such a huge figure makes up around 4% of the total GDP of Malaysia.

It is actually quite concerning to witness cyber-attackers spread everywhere, especially within businesses.

Ubaid Mustafa Qadri, Head of Technology Risk & Cyber Security at KPMG in Malaysia said that persistent threats, ransomware attacks, supply chain cyber-attacks, or anything new can come in with which one could struggle to emerge. So, lack of foresightedness and being reactive to the cyber-threat is actually way more dangerous than the actual threat.

Thus, it is important to have a plan ready so that it could be tested against a variety of scenarios in order to understand the impact of the attack on your business.

Having said that, let’s understand how to detect and stop the supply chain cyber-attack through a few handy measures. Here we go!

• Consider Speed as the Primary Factor

Speed matters! It does matter a lot! If the speed is enough to anticipate, detect, and stop the supply chain cyber-attack then no one can stop you from becoming the best in business in the whole globe!

Speed is that X-factor that separates your business from other players in the game. While a few of the supply chain cybersecurity policies term strength as the major factor, the majority of the practices would always put speed on number one. According to Accenture Malaysia, the cybersecurity leaders take around 15 days or less in order to identify and plug the security breaches.

Visibility, focus, and agility are the main indicators of rapid threat detection.

Moreover, through these indicators, both the buyers and the vendors can measure their abilities in a good manner.

The approach should always be proactive rather than reactive so that vulnerabilities are identified and eliminated thereby. While businesses that rely on a reactive approach are fairly slow and ineffective.

• Put Focus on Value

Now, Malaysian businesses are quite scared of cybersecurity threats. However, they should be smart enough to find out the value of money. Rather than investing with close eyes. When businesses make cyber investments without thinking twice, they automatically increase their hopes and are left shattered.

Hiscox indicated that businesses around the world have witnessed an increase in cyber security spending of 39% between 2019 and 2020.

With investments increasing rapidly, the businesses need to ensure whether their spent money was worth it or not.

Accenture Malaysia reported that 69% of the businesses feel that the growth in costs would be unsustainable in the long term. Achieving targeted results is more vital than investing money here and there.

The task should be to create effective tools that are able to identify the vulnerabilities in prior throughout the entire supply chain so that applicable measures are taken to safeguard the supply chain.

• Set a Momentum

When everything goes right, there is always a desire to add more and more tools to the arsenal. Nonetheless, the leading organizations always focus on maintaining momentum. They do not tend to go with the flow. Instead, they focus on their budget to make sure that they are aligned with it.

It is the art of doing the basics right when the time is right! The supply chain cyber-attacks have become more sophisticated. Therefore, the need of the hour is to understand the fundamentals because solutions always lie within the fundamentals, for example, securing the customer database.

It is very important to address the consequences of cybersecurity within the supply chain. If you ignore them, you are likely to come across prolonged damage. Moreover, if a supply chain data breach is ignored, your business would lose a huge amount of money.

• Get in touch with the Suppliers within the Supply Chain

Within the supply chain, the main entity is the supplier. So, working in coordination with the supplier at key levels would make sure to achieve the goals without any major hiccups. Coming across anyone who produces, manufactures, organizes, or supplies the goods is a vital step in getting to know more about the supply chain.

Businesses in Malaysia are ensuring to meet the suppliers physically. Hence, the auditing has been quite strict so that the suppliers are taking quality measures in terms of cybersecurity to prevent any minor or major cyber-attacks.

Businesses in Malaysia are in constant talks with the suppliers to demonstrate the results themselves.

Sometimes, even supply chains are not obvious. If your HVAC system consists of embedded IoT devices, then the vendor would have been refreshing the firmware on a regular basis. So, the vendor and the refreshes also become a part of your supply chain, even if you don’t consider it that way!

• Make it a Priority to Identify Vulnerabilities

The priority should be to identify the vulnerabilities within a supply chain. The first and foremost task is to identify and then eliminate immediately without wasting any more time. Make sure that you have a separate staff to look over the supply chain every once in a while.

The staff must be funded and trained specifically to eliminate the vulnerabilities right when they are in their infancy. Otherwise, delaying cyber-attacks could prove to be worse than anything!

Today, cybersecurity is a very important domain that can’t be overlooked in any case. So, make sure to prioritize where it is necessary and give your due time and effort.

The Bottom Line

In the end, it is important to note that Malaysia is growing immensely in digitizing businesses, all thanks to the pandemic. However, with the growth in the digital economy of the country, the focus should be on securing the supply chain in the best manner possible. The business owners in Malaysia should take active measures to learn about cybersecurity challenges and make it their habit to control the system in an optimal manner.