F-Secure Corporation continues to place emphasis on the small-medium industries (SME) market together with government and manufacturing throughout Malaysia and Southeast Asia (SEA).
Its regional manager (SEA) Yong Meng Hong said that, with the SME community being the cornerstone of Southeast Asian economies, these companies should always stay ahead of cyber threats that are fast evolving and becoming more advanced.
“The threat landscape of today has evolved significantly from what it was in the early days. No longer are there only little geeks running around developing script that force your computers to merely display bouncing balls. The geeks have evolved into real criminals,” said Yong.
He noted that ransomware is one of the biggest threats for SMEs.
“How ransomware works is basically through blackmail. Cyber criminals design and flood the world with programmes meant to lock users out of one of their key resources, data, then proceed to extort them for money in exchange for freeing those resources,” said Yong.
Yong believes that education is thus key to counter cyber threats.
“An ideal approach can be boiled down to four words; predict, prevent, detect and respond,” emphasises Yong.
“This four-phase approach also means that even if a threat does manage to bypass protective measures, all is not lost. The affected device can still be identified and isolated, so that the damage can be contained,” he further said.
“The findings from a forensic investigation of the device can then be used to further improve the organisation’s infrastructure, hardening it against future incidents.”
Toward this end, F-Secure has been working closely with local partners to provide end-to-end cybersecurity protection services for SMEs throughout the country and region.
Partnership with NetAssist
One of them is NetAssist, and collaboration between both companies has resulted in forward-thinking cybersecurity strategies for SMEs throughout Malaysia and the region.
“Our partnership with NetAssist include deploying lightweight intrusion detection sensors for endpoints, networks and decoy servers that are deployed across the client’s IT infrastructure. The sensors monitor activities initiated by the attackers, and stream all information to our cloud in real-time,” said Yong.
“Meanwhile, our cloud-based service hunts for anomalies in the data by using a combination of advanced technologies, such as real-time behavioral analytics, big data analytics and reputational analytics. Anomalies are hunted from two perspectives: known and unknown malicious behavior,” he added.
“The use of different types of analytics ensures that attackers are not able to remain undetected, even when using evasion tactics designed to fool specific detection methods.”
NetAssist is spearheaded by CEO Hon Fun Ping (pic) who said that demand for cybersecurity solutions is increasing due to local companies becoming more proactive about cyberattacks.
“Naturally, they turn to F-Secure and NetAssist for our advanced endpoint detection and response (EDR) solutions,” said Hon.
“EDR is a rapidly growing area of cyber security, augmenting standard endpoint products and providing better protection against sophisticated attacks,” he added.
“What NetAssist is good at is our ability to deliver industry-leading security services that provide our clients with improved visibility, enhanced detection capabilities and quicker incident response. Our unique managed service approach is much sought after due to an increasing shortage of proficient cybersecurity talent and resources,” Hon further said.
Meanwhile, Yong also praised Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) for its ongoing efforts to ensure that organisations are aware of how cyber threats are fast evolving.
“As the lead agency mandated to drive the country’s digital economy, MDEC is doing a commendable job in ensuring that the cybersecurity industry is developed with innovative solutions and services to respond to the increasingly sophisticated cybersecurity threats that we face today,” said Yong.
MDEC’s cybersecurity initiatives are being spearheaded by head of cybersecurity, Victor Lo (pic).
