Cyber Evolution: En Route to Strengthening Resilience in Asia-Pacific 3
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
En Route to Strengthening CYBER Resilience in Asia-Pacific EVOLUTION WHITE PAPER 2 WHITE PAPER CONTENTS Executive Summary 3 The shifting cyber threat landscape across Asia-Pacific 4 Recent cyber trends in Asia-Pacific 8 Key drivers of cyber challenges in Asia-Pacific 18 Asia-Pacific’s evolving regulatory climate 20 How companies can build cyber resilience 22 A call to action 24 AUTHORS Jaclyn Yeo Rob van der Ende Senior Research Analyst Vice President, Asia Pacific & Japan MMC Asia Pacific Risk Center Mandiant, a FireEye Company [email protected] [email protected] CONTRIBUTORS FireEye Marsh & McLennan Companies Bryce Boland Matthew McCabe, Marsh, US Vivek Chudgar Stephen R Vina, Marsh, US Patty Hullinger Richard D Green, Marsh, Asia Patrick Neighorn Douglas Ure, Marsh Risk Consulting, Asia Tony Sapienza Kelly Butler, Marsh, Australia Lynn Thorne Leslie Chacko, MMC Global Risk Center Timothy Wellsmore Wolfram Hedrich, MMC Asia Pacific Risk Center CYBER EVOLUTION: EN ROUTE TO STRENGTHENING RESILIENCE IN ASIA-PACIFIC 3 Knowing no boundaries, cyber incidents or data fraud and thefts that originate from North America or the European continent quickly impact APAC. Executive Summary The cyber threat landscape is morphing Cyber challenges in APAC, such as low constantly and dramatically. Around the world, cybersecurity investments and long dwell times, cyber dependency grows as increasing digital can be attributed to the complex geopolitical interconnection among people, things, and tensions, exposed critical infrastructure, and organizations expand. Asia-Pacific (APAC) is the severe shortage of cybersecurity talents in no different. the region. Knowing no boundaries, cyber incidents or data Fortunately, the regulatory climate in APAC is fraud and thefts that originate from North changing – slowly but surely. Although most America or the European continent quickly APAC countries today are not legally obliged to impact APAC, inflicting significant financial and report any cyber incidents and many remain personal data losses, as well as severe business silent, countries such as Singapore and Australia interruptions. These compound the effects of already have plans to adopt mandatory breach information infrastructure and network failures. notification laws in 2018. The sooner governments and businesses recognize today’s cyber Beyond currency volatility to political instability landscape poses a top enterprise risk, the better and evolving regulations, conducting business prepared they can be to take active steps to across borders today involves more risks – and address the inevitable breach. companies must add cyber to their list of risk concerns. Financial services, energy and utilities, As trusted cyber advisers, FireEye and Marsh & and telecommunications are among the most- McLennan Companies – each a leader in its own investigated industries in APAC, highlighting field – have collaborated to produce this white the urgent need for higher awareness levels, paper to help organizations across APAC build stronger mitigation measures, and improved and strengthen their enterprise cyber resilience. cybersecurity postures. 4 WHITE PAPER Cyber criminals and other threat What does this mean for the APAC region? The shifting actors with malicious intent are more sophisticated than ever, finding new The APAC region, which typically includes cyber threat and inventive ways to carry out attacks. much of East Asia, South Asia, Southeast Globally, more companies have accepted Asia, and Oceania, is heterogeneous and this reality and are proactively protecting differs widely in terms of cybersecurity landscape themselves against cyber attackers. In commitments and preparedness. According general, companies are more likely to adopt to the Global Cybersecurity Index 2017,2 across a posture of continuous cybersecurity.1 Singapore topped the world ranking in terms of its commitment to raise Asia-Pacific The growing interconnectedness between cybersecurity awareness, together with both digital and physical worlds and the several APAC countries that scored relatively increasing dependence on IT systems has high on the index: Malaysia (3rd), Australia exponentially expanded the surface areas (7th), Japan (11th), and South Korea (13th). for cyber attacks. This, coupled with the However, other key populous economies rising sophistication by cyber criminals, in Asia did not fare as well, such as India, has evolved to become a major risk for China, and Indonesia, which ranked 23, 32, enterprises and society. Besides dramatically and 70 respectively. increasing the value of information stored on network systems, the growing Countries in APAC, in general, have fared digital connectivity of people, things, and relatively badly in dealing with these companies has given rise to more frequent cybersecurity disruptions due to lower cyber attacks, data fraud and theft, and cyber awareness levels. The reasons for compounded the effects of information this are shown in Figure 1. infrastructure and network failure. 1 The cybersecurity posture of an organization refers to its overall cybersecurity strength, relating to the Internet and the vulnerability to the external threats. 2 BRINK News 2017. Singapore tops global cybersecurity index. CYBER EVOLUTION: EN ROUTE TO STRENGTHENING RESILIENCE IN ASIA-PACIFIC 5 Figure 1. Key attributes for low cyber awareness and insurance LEGACY SYSTEMS 1 Long-standing business processes pose resistance to change • Risk management often kept in-house • Inertia towards allocating additional resources (i.e. time, budget) to cybersecurity technologies LACK OF NECESSITY Inadequate regulations and legislation LOW • Apparent lack of urgency and severity CYBER RISK • No single standardized AWARENESS cybersecurity protocol or IN APAC notification requirements for 2 businesses to adhere LACK OF GOOD QUALITY DATA Limited good quality actuarial data • Challenge in measuring cyber risk exposure • Lack of cybersecurity maturity and readiness • Often over-priced cyber insurance with excess coverage that does not mitigate the risk effectively (Source: Asia Pacific Risk Center (APRC) analysis) 3 The Asia-Pacific (APAC) region, which typically includes much of East Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Oceania, is heterogeneous and differs widely in terms of cybersecurity commitments and preparedness. 6 WHITE PAPER COUNTRIES HIT HARDEST GLOBALLY BY WANNACRY APAC still has the highest CHINA 20 dwell times due to a basic lack of investment in appropriate cybersecurity measures. VIETNAM INDIA Companies across the region can improve Attacks that are identified quickly — like their cybersecurity in many ways. One crucial ransomware and destructive wiper attacks — measure — dwell time — indicates that, in general, skew these statistics, but the difference is due APAC companies lag well behind their global to the changing nature of the attacks, and not counterparts. Dwell time statistics (Figure 2) — the cybersecurity measures in place. APAC still the amount of time (in days) between network has the highest dwell times due to a basic lack of intrusion and the detection of the threat actor — investment in appropriate cybersecurity measures. is highest in APAC when compared to the global average, as well as the statistics in the Americas, Moreover, the ever-evolving cyber risk landscape and Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA). and lack of best practices around managing cyber risk posture further exacerbate these The typical time between an attacker attacks. The threat of large cyber attacks has compromising a secured network and the significantly increased in importance in 2017, breach being detected (reported by FireEye according to the World Economic Forum’s 2017 as “median dwell time” in its annual M-Trends Executive Opinion Survey,5 an exclusive poll in report3) amounted to 172 days in the APAC which 12,400 executives across 136 countries region during 2016. This is almost twice as long identified the global and regional risks of highest as the global median dwell time of 99 days in concern for doing business in their countries. the same year. This indicates cyber criminals, on average, spend almost half a year undetected Cyber risks have historically been among the within the compromised network — assessing top five risks for executives in East Asia and and stealing valuable data and disrupting the Pacific, but the various high-profile cyber critical operations before they are discovered. attacks in 2017 have prompted executives to pay closer attention to the potential damage The decreased dwell time in APAC from these attacks may cause. Most notable among the previous year might be considered an these incidents is the WannaCry ransomware improvement that is only partially attributed attack in May 2017 that severely disrupted to better testing methodologies4 (such as Red businesses in major Asian economies, with Teaming and Response Readiness Assessments China, India and Vietnam reported to be to proactively understand security postures). among the 20 countries hit hardest globally. 3 FireEye, 2017. M-Trends 2017: A View from the Front Lines. 4 BRINK News, 2017. Singapore tops global cybersecurity index. 5 BRINK News, 2017. Politics and cyber are rising concerns for business leaders. CYBER EVOLUTION: EN ROUTE TO STRENGTHENING RESILIENCE IN ASIA-PACIFIC 7 172 Median Dwell Times (in days) 106 99 99 GLOBAL Dwell Time The time between an AMERICAS attacker compromising a secured network and the EMEA breach being detected APAC Figure 2. Asia-Pacific