Only 19% of Malaysian consumers confident that businesses do enough to protect against cyber-attacks

• More than 70% of Malaysian consumers change their opinions of a brand after an attack
• Consumers are most concerned about violations of financial and personal information

ONLY 18.72% of Malaysian consumers feel “extremely confident” that businesses are doing enough to protect them against cyber-crime, according to the ‘State of Cybersecurity’ research report from Limelight Networks, a 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 cyber-security in their online transactions.

Increasing cyber-crime has not stopped consumers from continuing their online activities. The report found that 92.36% of Malaysian consumers check a site’s security before partaking in e-commerce or other activities compared to Singaporean consumers who appear less concerned with only 86.73%.

When making a transaction, smartphones are 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 more than half 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.

“Cyber-security 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% of Malaysian consumers change their opinions of a brand after a cyber-attack
• When it comes to cyber-crime, consumers are most concerned about violations of financial and personal information (75.62%)
• Consumers are extremely concerned about the current state of cyber-security and think businesses are not doing enough to stop threats

Additional insight from the report (Businesses)

• More than 70% of Malaysian businesses feel that a sustained cyber-attack could have significant financial and brand implications
• When it comes to deploying cyber-security solutions, the major hurdles to implementation are cost (26.67%) and lack of in-house expertise (25.7%) to manage security solutions
• For businesses deploying cyber-security solutions, a combination of cloud and on-premise is preferred with 42.86 %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.