F-Secure in SME partnership agreement with Jardine OneSolution

• F-Secure says committed to region, putting more resources into Malaysia
• Threat report says Malaysian SMEs especially vulnerable to botnet-related viruses

ONLINE security and privacy company F-Secure recently signed a partnership agreement with IT distributor Jardine OneSolution (JOS), which it said would extend its reach to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) throughout Malaysia.
 
F-Secure began operating in Malaysia in early 2006, and gained MSC Malaysia (Multimedia Super Corridor) status within its first three months, the company said in a statement.
 
Today, it has its own F-Secure Tower in Bangsar South in Kuala Lumpur, a facility which houses its laboratory, customer support, and R&D (research and development) operations.
 
“We’re committed to the region, and this year we’ve decided to increase our focus and put more resources in Malaysia,” said F-Secure Asia Pacific vice president Paul Palmer.
 
The new partnership agreement with JOS allows F-Secure to focus on delivering its cloud-based security solutions to SMEs.
 
According to PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), the Asia Pacific region is at the cutting edge of information security advances. However, PwC also notes that the region is lagging in the detection of security incidents and investing in information security budgets.
 
A B2B (business-to-business) International survey conducted last year found that viruses, worms, trojans, and other types of malware were problems for 61% of respondents.
 
The average cost of a single data security incident was US$720,000 for a large company, and in the Asia Pacific region, financial losses due to security incidents increased by 22% from 2013, F-Secure said.
 
A threat report published by F-Secure last year concluded that Malaysian businesses, especially SMEs, were vulnerable to increasingly larger numbers of botnet-related viruses.
 
This leaves these organisations vulnerable to take-overs by botnets, which can result in businesses sending massive amounts of spam or even contributing to distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, the company said.
 
“In Malaysia, spending on security products by SMEs is expected to hit US$86.7 million this year, and grow to US$130 million by 2017,” said Palmer.
 
“It’s not a small sum, and this certainly shows that businesses here are mature enough to know that they need to stay safe from unseen threats. We intend to assist them as best we can,” he added.
 
Palmer argued that focusing on corporate cloud-based security solutions would be best for SMEs, and F-Secure’s partnership with JOS is a vital step towards that end.
 
“SMEs are the future of business, and a vital part of Malaysia’s business ecosystem. We fully intend to keep them as safe as possible,” said Palmer.
 
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