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We are smack bang in the epicenter of the Asian Century. That makes the APAC region a ‘Ground Zero’ for almost everything shaping today’s world.

It’s the ‘Ground Zero’ for mobile penetration – the region reached 1.73 billion unique mobile subscribers last year, and 5G users are expected to touch 430 million by 2025.

That makes it the ‘Ground Zero’ for innovation.  More than 80% of APAC decision-makers are building AI technologies, far ahead of the 73% global average. 40% of organizations will deliver innovative products & services at a faster pace compared to the last couple of years. And India is right at the forefront of this – tech spending growth here will be the highest in the region, touching 10.1% per year.

But it’s not all rosy. Fact of the matter is, the cybersecurity infrastructure is struggling to keep pace with the massive growth being experienced in the region, and that ultimately makes APAC the ‘Ground Zero’ for Cybercrime.

Here’s a glimpse into the cybersecurity challenges & threats Asia is currently facing.

• Region by region, Asia faces the most cyberattacks, a whopping 31% of total worldwide breaches in 2022.
• Nearly half of APAC organizations (47%) say cyberattacks on their systems have increased this year.
• The first quarter of 2023 saw APAC organizations facing 1,835 attacks per week on average, far beyond the global average of 1,248 attacks per week.
• The average cost of a data breach in Southeast Asia is $3.05 million for every organization. India isn’t far behind at $2.18 million. And within all these breaches, malware threats account for 57% of the cases in Asia.
• The number of ransomware attacks in India increased by 53% in 2022, and the average ransom was $1.2 million.

It all makes for grim reading. But through it all, we can identify 3 key areas of concern in the region – facets you can safeguard yourself from with a few changes in policy.

Let’s start with the first, most obvious one. Because despite the many high tech tools these cybercriminals use, most data breaches in Asia can be attributed to simple – Human Error.

74% of breaches involve a human element

This means setting weak passwords that can easily be guessed by these hackers without even getting into the intricacies of brute force or dictionary attacks. It also means something as basic as sending confidential information to the wrong person. (Trust us when we say that it happens a lot more than you think.)

However, most of these breaches involve social engineering, a tactic where cybercriminals impersonate trusted entities and exploit psychological triggers to obtain your credentials. What was once considered to be clear & obvious, has become shockingly complex in recent times.

So how do you stay vigilant?

Multi-factor authentications and password managers definitely help, but it also starts with your policies involving access. The best option is a least privilege model, where users only get access to data relevant to them. This is far better than allowing equal access across the board, because it helps your IT teams easily spot unusual user activity.

But the key in all of this is to turn your employees from spectators to protectors. That means educating them and making them vigilant against these advances.

Of course, this includes your cybersecurity teams as well. Unfortunately, the second problem plaguing the APAC region is a lack of cybersecurity talent.

Cybersecurity skill gap

Sure, in 2022, APAC recorded a 15.6% increase in cybersecurity professionals. But it’s telling that despite that increase, APAC still lacks about 2.1 million trained employees in the field.

That creates a serious disparity. A July 2023 survey by Cloudflare indicates that 78% of companies experienced at least one cybersecurity incident in the past year, yet only 38% say they were well prepared to deal with it. It all points to a lack of cybersecurity awareness in Asia.

This leads to this particularly problematic vicious cycle: