MICROSOFT Corp.’s Asia operations report released on February 13 identified Asia-Pacific markets, especially the emerging ones, as among those at the highest risk of cybersecurity threats.
In a statement, the company said three out of the top five global spots for rate of malicious software (malware) encounters are in the region.
Out of the top five locations across the globe most at risk of infection, two are located in Southeast Asia, namely Vietnam and Indonesia. Both locations have a malware encounter rate of more than 45 percent in the second quarter of 2016, which is more than double the worldwide average of over 21 percent during the same period. The Philippines is No. 7 on the list, with an encounter rate of 35.6 percent.
However, even markets in the region with higher levels of IT maturity, such as Japan, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore, have displayed malware encounter rates that are below the worldwide average, highlighting the diverse cybersecurity landscape in the Asia Pacific, the company said.
Based on the report, the Philippines has 5.99 drive-by download pages per 1,000 Uniform Resource Locators compared to the worldwide number at 0.55.
Drive-by downloads are malware or threats downloaded from the Internet which are usually unintentional. For example, downloading an executable program or movie file without knowing the malware attached.
“With increasing malware encounters and sophistication of cyber attacks, cyber security is becoming a mission critical priority for most organizations,” Raul Cortez, who leads Corporate, External and Legal Affairs at Microsoft Philippines, said.
According to Cortez, it generally takes an average up to 200 days for organizations to find out that they have been breached.
“With no sign of abatement in the future, what companies need is a secure modern enterprise posture, which involves well-integrated ‘Protect-Detect-Respond’ investments and capabilities, with a strategic focus on the core pillars—identity, apps, data, infrastructure and devices,” Cortez was quoted in a statement as saying, “Additionally, organizations should also strongly consider adopting trusted cloud-based services to enjoy the highest levels of data protection, leveraging the cloud provider’s enterprise-grade security and privacy expertise, assurances and certifications.”