A new survey carried out by Intel Security has revealed that the Philippines is the highest ranked country in the Southeast Asian region when it comes to enhancing controls for Internet of Things (IoT) security.
The survey, which covered Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines, extracted analysis from key players in IT organizations. A total of 1,953 persons responded to the survey.
Of the countries surveyed, Thailand ranked lowest in its IoT security awareness with only 39 percent of IT leaders recognizing the need for enhancements to be made to their security controls to secure their IoT while Philippines ranked highest as the most aware at 53 percent.
Singapore, the country with the highest mobile penetration globally, stood at 42 percent, while Malaysia and Indonesia stood at 46 percent and 40 percent respectively.
The survey noted that advanced security technology, better employee security awareness, and IT steering committees are the top three solutions mentioned when the IT leaders in the Philippines were asked what they think would help improve their organizations? security levels against the backdrop of an IoT implementation.
Also, 32 percent of IT leaders in the Philippines believe better detection tools would do the most to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their staff towards IoT security.
In addition, 25 percent of respondents from the Philippines believe better analysis tools would help, while 15 percent believe more training around managing incidence response issues over multiple networks is needed.
The survey findings came across as surprising at a time when Southeast Asia is being considered the biggest penetration market for IoT devices globally.
While the IoT market size in Asia Pacific is expected to grow to $862 billion in 2020 according to IDC, Intel Security predicts that growing vulnerabilities arising from new technologies such as DDoS attacks and spammed devices will open up new possibilities to hackers and cybercriminals.
When asked about their preferred solutions to improve their organizations? security levels against the backdrop of an IOT implementation, IT leaders from almost all countries agreed on advanced security technologies as being the most important.
Other solutions preferred by all the countries include enforcing better employee security awareness, setting up IT steering committees and increasing security department staff.
Craig Nielsen, managing director for South East Asia at Intel Security said, ?Security is an important aspect of IoT that needs to be addressed urgently. Intel Security predicts that these systems will reach substantial enough penetration levels that they will attract attackers. With the evolving threat landscape, security needs to cut across the entire IoT spectrum, whether it is protecting devices, putting in access control measures, writing security codes, or looking at security from a policy perspective.?
