Malaysian consumers undeterred by rise in cybercrime

PETALING JAYA: Only 18.72% of Malaysian consumers feel “extremely confident” that businesses are doing enough to protect them against cybercrime, according to Limelight Networks’ State of Cybersecurity research report.

However, increasing cybercrime has not stopped consumers from continuing their online activities, with 92.36% of Malaysia consumers checking a site’s security before partaking in e-commerce or other activities compared with Singaporean consumers who appear less concerned with only 86.73%. A total of 1,300 consumers and over 300 business across Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines were surveyed.

When making a transaction, smartphones are the device of choice in Malaysia, and laptops come in second.

Limelight Networks, a global leader in digital content delivery, also found that a brand’s reputation and credibility were directly impacted once their website has been hacked.

“Yet, businesses are not sitting idly either. The vast majority of businesses who responded to the survey indicated that their organisation has implemented technologies to protect against DDoS (distributed denial of service) and other attacks, which is especially important given that more than half of the Malaysian businesses indicated that their organisation’s digital presence had been attacked in the past two years, resulting in site downtime or loss of data,” the report said.

More than 70% of Malaysian consumers change their opinions of a brand after a cyber-attack. For Malaysian businesses, over 70% opined that a sustained cyberattack could have significant financial and brand implications, it added.