SINGAPORE (July 17): Singapore is ranked 11th globally when it comes to locations with the most number of incidents caused by servers hosted in the country.
In fact, more than two million incidents which originated from servers located in Singapore were uncovered in the second quarter of 2019 alone, says Kaspersky, the cyber security solutions provider.
The report also found that a third of local users came close to being infected by local threats during this period.
In terms of web threats, Kaspersky detected 1.3 million different Internet-borne cyber threats on the computers of Kaspersky Security Network (KSN) participants in Singapore, with 12.8% of users attacked by web-borne threats in 2Q19.
Local threats include worms and file viruses – which account for the majority of such incidents. This, according to Kaspersky Lab analysts, illustrates how frequently users are attacked by malware spread via removable USB drives, CDs and DVDs, and other ‘offline’ methods.
Yeo Siang Tiong, general manager of Kaspersky Lab Southeast Asia, says, "As one of Asia’s top digital nations, it is unsurprising that Singapore has become a key target for hackers to perpetrate attacks through the country’s well-developed IT infrastructure.”
However, Yeo remains bullish on Singapore’s ability to improve in terms of susceptibility to cyber threats.
“With the government’s clear priority towards securing the country’s online periphery, I believe the threat landscape in the country will improve, maybe slowly, but still surely. For our part, we recently extended our knowledge sharing cooperation with Interpol and we also have active partnerships with universities in Singapore which aim to boost the cybersecurity skills of the youth in this country,” Yeo adds.
