10,000 cybersecurity cases each year
PUTRAJAYA: CyberSecurity Malaysia receives between 9,000 and 10,000 incident reports each year on matters of contention happening in the cyberspace.
Its chief executive officer, Datuk Dr Amirudin Abdul Wahab, said one of the reported incidents was data breach, classified under the intrusion category.
“This category also includes hacking. For data breaches, we are seeing a rising trend (over the last few years). In 2015, we received seven data breach reported incidents and six cases last year,” he said.
“This year, until September, however, we see a four-fold increase, with 22 reported incidents on data breaches.
“It shows that data breaches are a concern. Individuals as well as organisations would do well to adopt best practices.”
He was speaking after the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between CyberSecurity Malaysia and Turkey’s May Cyber Teknoloji.
The signing was witnessed by CyberSecurity board of directors chairman General Tan Sri Mohd Azumi Mohamed.
Amirudin said data breaches were not a local phenomenon, adding that cyberthreats, data breaches and cybercrime had been listed as the top three global risks last year.
For the past five to six years, he said, CyberSecurity had seen a growing number of cyber incidents, with fraud topping the list followed by intrusion, malicious codes and cyber harassment.
As at last month, the cybersecurity specialist agency had received 3,240 reports on fraud, 1,781 on intrusion, 694 on malicious codes and 499 on cyberharassment.
“We have received 6,891 incident reports as of October,” said Amirudin.
On the data leak involving 46.2 million Malaysian mobile phone customers, Azumi said it was a police case.
“So let us leave it to the police,” he said, declining to comment on the case.
Amirudin said CyberSecurity was ready to provide technical support and expertise to enforcement agencies, which it had done before.
“If there is a (data) breach, they can report to Cyber999 or call us at 1-300-88-2999,” he said, adding that the statistics he gave did not include the data leak.
Meanwhile, Malaysia’s strong presence in the cybersecurity sector has attracted many foreign companies to invest in the country.
The latest international player to set up shop in Malaysia is Turkish company May Cyber Teknoloji, which is establishing its regional office in the country.
Slated to begin operations early next year, the office will be the company’s first major presence outside of Turkey.
A leading company based in Ankara, May Cyber Teknoloji develops and manufactures cybersecurity products, especially in network access control, security incident management, network monitoring, encryption and compliance management.
“We look forward to expanding our services and technological expertise to Asean countries, including members of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).
“Therefore, we (are) setting up our first regional office in Malaysia and will collaborate with local company Nexagate Sdn Bhd to promote technology transfer,” said company chairman Mehmet Ali Yalcindag after the signing of the MoU.
The MoU identifies three areas of collaboration: research and development, covering the areas of cybersecurity technical tools, methods and processes; capacity building through competency training programmes as well as cybersecurity skills; and, developing marketing strategies to promote cybersecurity.
Azumi said: “Through this partnership, CyberSecurity Malaysia will contribute to the foreign direct investment in the national cybersecurity industry.
“We have been at the forefront of encouraging investments that can provide Malaysia with advanced technologies to ensure our cyber environment is reliable, safe and trustworthy.”
It was reported that the information communication technology sector is expected to contribute 18.2 per cent, or approximately RM34.9 billion, to the country’s gross domestic product by 2020.