Thais told to guard online data

Cyber-resilience key to digital era

Thais’ behaviour has changed because of three major social influencers — Facebook, YouTube and Line — which are free services, but users pay by ceding their privacy.

Prinya Hom-anek, founder and chief executive of ACIS Professional Center and a cybersecurity expert, said social, mobile, cloud and information are the four key drivers of digital disruption, with Thailand having one of the highest rates of social media use in the world.

Facebook, YouTube and Line have been the three biggest influencers, as there are more than 54 million Thai Facebook accounts and over 100 million mobile subscriptions, exceeding the population by a wide margin.

Banks had to provide mobile banking as today banking happens everywhere except banks, for the most part, he said.

“People can do financial transactions in the bedroom without going to the bank,” said Mr Prinya.

All the data of social media users is kept in the cloud, he said.

“Whatever we do or we like, wherever we go; it is all kept on the cloud. Facebook and Google already know it. There is no privacy. We can do all these things for free, but we pay with our privacy,” he said.

Data sovereignty is important, said Mr Prinya, noting data security and privacy are insufficient. Consumers must become cyber-resilient, with the Bank of Thailand announcing last year that every bank has to comply with cyber-resilience measures.

Consumers want their free services to continue, so banks must prepare for all scenarios, including the worst case, he said.

“You can get security without privacy, but you cannot get privacy without security,” said Mr Prinya.

The top five digitally disruptive technologies are Internet of Things (IoT), big data, artificial intelligence, machine learning, blockchain, he said.

But data disruption is not data transformation, said Mr Prinya. To have a data transformation, the mindset of top management needs to change from preventive to responsive readiness and proactive.

The public also needs to become familiarised with cyber-attacks to become more resilient, he said.

“Cyber-resilience is the key to survive the IoT era,” said Mr Prinya.

He said the top five most dangerous attacks are cloud storage data leakage; big data analytics, de-anonymisation and correlation; attackers monetising compromised systems using cryptocoin miners; recognition of hardware flaws; and malware attacks disrupting industrial control systems and utilities.

Pravit Leesatapornwongsa, commissioner of the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission, said Thailand should be more concerned about the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

“Personal data should be separated from big data,” said Mr Pravit.

The penalty for non-compliance with GDRP is as high as 4% of global revenue. Personal data belongs to the data subjects, according to the new EU rule, but subjects can consent the right to use that data to others, he said.