Only 18.72 percent of Malaysian consumers feel “extremely confident” that businesses are doing enough to protect them against cybercrime, according to the ‘State of Cybersecurity’ research report from Limelight Networks, (Nasdaq:LLNW), a global leader in digital content delivery. How a business responds to cyber-attacks therefore can significantly impact consumer trust and affect brand reputation and long-term revenue.
The survey of consumers in Singapore, Malaysia, and the Philippines takes a close look at how consumers perceive the current state of cybersecurity in their online transactions.
Increasing cybercrime has not stopped consumers from continuing their online activities. The report found that 92.36 percent of Malaysian consumers check a site’s security before initiating a transaction compared to Singaporean consumers who appear less concerned with only 86.73 percent. When making a transaction, smartphones are the device of choice in Malaysia, and laptops coming in second.
The Limelight report 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 and other attacks, which is especially important given that majority 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.
“With a potential cyber-attack lurking in the corner, brands can no longer rest on ‘legacy trust’ that they have built over the years. Today, it’s about building trust each time a customer transacts with a brand online. Cybersecurity is never a one-size-fits-all approach. Brands need to think about a multi-layered approach to security and explore the use of a cloud-based solution. They also need to employ a content delivery network (CDN) that can buffer volumetric attacks,” said Jaheer Abbas, Sales Regional Director, SE Asia and ANZ at Limelight Networks.
“Not only can a CDN mitigate DDoS and other high-volume cyber-attacks, it can also have a significantly positive impact on the end-user experience by improving the speed and quality of content delivery,” he added.
Additional insight from the report (Consumers)
• Brand integrity and cyber-attacks — When attacks occur, brand reputation falters and this impacts future business. According to the report, more than 70 percent of Malaysian consumers change their opinions of a brand after a cyber-attack.
• When it comes to cybercrime, consumers are most concerned about violations of financial and personal information (75.62 percent).
• Consumers are extremely concerned about the current state of cybersecurity and think businesses are not doing enough to stop threats.
Additional insight from the report (Businesses)
• More than 75 percent of businesses feel that a sustained cyber-attack could have significant financial and brand implications.
• When it comes to deploying cybersecurity solutions, the major hurdles to implementation are cost (26.67 percent) and lack of in-house expertise (25.7 percent) to manage security solutions.
• For businesses deploying cybersecurity solutions, a combination of cloud and on premise is preferred with 42.86 percent of respondents favouring this approach.
The ‘State of Cybersecurity’ report for Southeast Asia is based on a survey of 1,300 consumers ranging in age, gender, and education and over 300 businesses across Singapore, Malaysia, and the Philippines.
