The number of cyber-attacks facing businesses in Singapore is growing. However, most enterprises in the country do not patch their defences in time.
That is according to new research conducted by the Ponemon Institute, the data protection researchers, and commissioned by ServiceNow, the cloud computing company.
The research found that while companies in Singapore had experienced an 18% increase in hack-attacks over the past year, 58% of the reported breaches could have been prevented if the businesses had patched their software.
The researchers noted that 72% of the businesses polled were considering hiring around five new employees to deal with patching issues, suggesting understaffing could be one of the issues preventing them from patching their cybersecurity in time.
Another hurdle to overcome was that about 67% stated that they could not agree on a common view of applications and assets across security and IT teams, according to ZDNet.
Another 69% said they could not take critical applications and systems offline to patch them quickly, while 45% struggled to prioritise what needed to be patched.
The authorities in Singapore are seemingly aware of the risk dodgy cybersecurity can have on businesses and have consequently moved to ensure companies strengthen their digital defences.
For instance, in August it was revealed that the Monetary Authority of Singapore had taken steps to raise the standard of the country’s financial sector’s digital defences by introducing a new set legally binding requirements.
Financial services organisations in Singapore have until August 6 2020 to implement the new standard. The requirements include establishing and implementing robust security for IT systems, ensuring updates are applied to address system security flaws in a timely manner and deploying security devices to restrict unauthorized network traffic.
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