Singapore's local cyber threats spike by 52.9% in 2023, reveals Kaspersky

Singapore has seen a significant 52.9% increase in cyber threat sources originating from local servers in 2023, compared to the previous year, new Kaspersky data has revealed. Throughout the year, Kaspersky Security Network (KSN) detected a total of 17,010,939 incidents from servers hosted in the South-East Asian city-state, a sharp rise from the 11,123,465 incidents identified in 2022.

Servers hold a huge amount of information and provide organisations with data, resources, services or programmes. However, if proper safety measures are not in place, they can easily be compromised by threat actors and utilised as platforms to instigate attacks against organisations or external entities.

With the growing adoption of cloud computing and reliance on tech vendors and third-party service providers, businesses are more susceptible than ever to these cyber threats. This interconnectedness and shared dependency on centralised servers pose collective vulnerabilities. A notable instance of this vulnerability was last year's service outage experienced by Singapore's healthcare providers, driven by Denial of Service (DDoS) style cyber-attacks on their IT servers.

"Singapore's regional data centre ambition continues to grow with the recent lifting of the data centre moratorium along with the public consultation launched at the end of 2023," said Yeo Siang Tiong, General Manager for Southeast Asia at Kaspersky. "Clearly, the country is taking extensive measures to protect its critical infrastructure and fortify it for the digital age."

Kaspersky advises businesses to identify critical business assets and systems and to ensure that these assets are protected with regular backups of crucial information. Corporations must also understand nature of potential threats, monitor cybersecurity news, choose a proven endpoint cybersecurity solution, and use the latest threat intelligence. Designing and approving PR-statement templates for various types of emergencies in advance will also enable organisations to respond promptly and efficaciously in case of a cybersecurity emergency.

Tiong added: "Along with regulatory policy, organisations need to continue to be collaborative and prudent in managing their resources to build up cyber resiliency to fortify their businesses against complex and intensive cyber campaigns."

Contributing to the global cybersecurity landscape, Kaspersky's Security Network hosts a complex distributed infrastructure dedicated to processing cybersecurity-related data streams from millions of voluntary participants from around the world. The alliance of expert analysis, big data and machine learning within KSN enables the fastest detection of advanced and previously unknown malware, the company states. This system forms a crucial component of Kaspersky's multi-layered approach to security.