Since 2020, the world has been combatting the unprecedented pandemic which brought about radical changes in the daily lives of millions of people globally. Amongst its most evident aftermaths is the acceleration of digitalisation, especially in the developing economies in Southeast Asia like Malaysia.
Yeo Siang Tiong, General Manager for Southeast Asia at Kaspersky said that it is timely that Malaysia Cybersecurity Strategy 2020-2024 was announced in October last year, which aims to improve the cybersecurity management and capability of the country.
“The fast-forwarded digital revolution puts forward cybersecurity as a necessity for countries across the globe including Malaysia, and it is a right step forward that the government and private organisations here are taking steps to beef up the country’s cyberdefenses. Since Movement Control Order 1.0 was announced in 2020, we have observed high level of internet reliance with work and daily activities shifted online. For instance, the government itself has increased their work-from-home staff to 80%,” says Yeo.
Aside from remote working and distance learning, Malaysians also embraced digital payment technology and cashless transactions more during the pandemic. This trend, however, did not go unnoticed for cybercriminals.
Evolution 2020 report noted that malicious actors online constantly monitor the situation in the world, collecting the most interesting topics for potential victims and then use these to infect for their gains.
On the move forward, “We laud the speed of MyDIGITAL, which will ensure that payments from all government services will be made on a cashless basis by 2022. It is a welcome development which requires users to be more aware and equip to protect their assets against cybercriminals. After blocking a total of 103,573 mobile malware attempts in Malaysia in 2020, parallel with the increased usage of e-payment platforms, it is clear that these actors will always have several tactics on their sleeves to compromise us. To combat them, we need to work together as a community to build a more connected and also better secured cybersphere,” Yeo adds.
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