Crest: Malaysian companies must take cyber security seriously

PETALING JAYA: Companies in Malaysia must take cyber security seriously amid new threats including the latest WannaCry ransomware, according to Crest Malaysian chapter chairman Mohammed Fadzil Haron.

“The perpetrators of WannaCry learnt to create it from leaked National Security Agency’s documents,” Fadzil said at the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with UK-based Crest which is an accreditation body for the cyber security market here yesterday.

Crest signed the MoU with the Malaysian chapter of Crest to help promote an internationally recognised certification and accreditation framework for the domestic cyber security industry.

“We can prioritise based on the risk of the threat and we can test whether our controls are good enough to prevent the kind of attacks,” Fadzil added.

While he noted that there were certain companies in Malaysia that were still not putting cyber security as a priority, there were companies that spent quite a sizeable amount for the purpose.

Companies’ backbone IT infrastructure can be paralysed and eventually affect their business operations by these new and evolv- ing cyber security threats.

Penetration testing is widely accepted as one of the key elements in the IT security framework to assess the effectiveness of current defense mechanisms.

The signing of the MoU marked the partnership between the two parties and the rollout of the Crest chapter in Malaysia.

“This MoU is significant in demonstrating Malaysia’s commit- ment to being a major international contributor to the fight against cyber crime. Crest Malaysia will provide a platform for collaboration between industry, regulators, the government and the cyber security service providers,” Crest president Ian Glover said.

“This collaboration will provide capability, capacity and consistency within the domestic cyber security market,” he added.