Govt urged to expand roles in cyber defence mechanism

KUALA LUMPUR: The government should expand its role from only securing public networks to encompass both public and private networks in order to mount a proper national cyber defence mechanism, said Deloitte Malaysia.

Its cyber risk director, Azlan Mohamed Ghazali, said organisations should consider multi-layered solutions and protection from the technology and infrastructure perspective, while increasing awareness and reevaluating risk management to help strengthen their security postures.

"With a strong Internet penetration of 83 per cent in Malaysia and the rapid increase of Internet-enabled devices, cyber culture is growing faster than cyber security.

"Everything that depends on cyberspace is potentially at risk. The key is to be resilient, by reimagining risk to drive core organisation objectives, from cyber, technology, and strategic risk, to sustainability and building a solid reputation," he said in a statement today.

Therefore, Deloitte has outlined that the government should shift the way it manages relationships, talents, and internal operations to become more effective in combating cybercrime and strengthen the nation's cyber security posture.

The government should consider increasing the access to cutting-edge tools and technologies, scale the sharing of threat information, grow the pool of leading talent, as well as inculcate a zero-trust mindset.

"Connecting with a wide array of partners can help keep the government at the cutting edge of cyber tools, technologies, and best practices. Coordinating with ecosystems across levels of government and with other countries can ensure government access to the newest threat indicators, and that leading practices are in place," it said.

According to Deloitte, the sheer number of interconnections in an ecosystem means that old models of security built on keeping threats at bay outside of networks simply do not work.

"Rather, security is beginning to shift towards models such as zero trust that assume breaches exist and look to verify that activity is authentic."

A Deloitte survey of nearly 600 information technology professionals found that 37 per cent saw an acceleration in the adoption of zero trust due to COVID-19, it added.

-- BERNAMA