Fortinet Survey Reveals Cybersecurity Strategies of APAC Enterprises

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New Fortinet research identifies cloud and vulnerability in IT systems as the two greatest concerns for IT decision makers; uncovers trend favouring actionable threat intelligence, faster incident response and managed security services

“Our independent study highlights the urgent need among enterprise-scale organisations from all sectors in APAC to prioritize end-to-end cybersecurity protection with actionable, threat intelligence capabilities in the face of new digital business challenges. Enterprises need to respond more rapidly and effectively to security breaches by investing in integrated, adaptive cybersecurity architectures for the borderless network. Fortinet is uniquely equipped to deliver this security without compromise through a seamless, comprehensive security fabric.” - Patrice Perche, Senior Executive Vice President, Worldwide Sales & Support, Fortinet

News Summary:

New research from Fortinet, the global leader in high-performance cybersecurity solutions, has revealed the cybersecurity strategies of IT decision makers (ITDMs) at organisations with more than 250 employees across APAC:

64 percent say the best response to increased security breaches is to invest in new cyber security technologies that provide protection across the entire threat lifecycle.

The two greatest concerns of ITDMs were securing the cloud and protecting against vulnerabilities in IT systems:

o Securing the cloud: 67 percent for the region and 86 percent of Mainland Chinese respondents – the highest in APAC.

o Protecting against vulnerabilities in IT systems: 69 percent for the region and 74 percent of Thai respondents – the highest in APAC.

However, many see increased security breaches as a catalyst for outsourcing cybersecurity functions to a managed security service provider (MSSP). In all, the research found that within three to five years, 38 percent of APAC organisations could be addressing their cybersecurity priorities through outsourcing. The forecast for cybersecurity outsourcing adoption is highest in Singapore (59 percent), while in Thailand the take-up is lowest with only 30 percent of organisations expected to outsource.

Findings Advocate Need for Security Fabric and Actionable Threat Intelligence

The survey examined the response tactics of those affected by cyber attacks to illustrate how present security infrastructures have struggled to contend with the realities of an increasingly digital world.  Of the more than half (59 percent) of all APAC IT decision makers in the survey who reported a security breach in the last year, only 22 percent of them discovered this within minutes of the breach occurring.  Of the Indian respondents who experienced a recent breach, this response threshold was met by only 14 percent (the lowest in the region).

In some sectors, such as healthcare, it took 53 percent of respondents days, months or even years to spot breaches.

Such a deficiency in rapid, effective threat identification and response is proven to be highly costly to breached organisations as sensitive data is lost, systems are compromised and brand reputation is damaged.  

The survey found that, to mitigate these attacks and better protect their organisations, the number one action undertaken by ITDMs is the use of threat detection technologies (15 percent), closely followed by cloud-based cybersecurity services (13 percent).  Such capabilities are underpinned by the provision of actionable threat intelligence.

APAC respondents cited ‘improved risk management’ as the greatest value of threat intelligence (55 percent), followed by ‘improved prevention of attacks’ (53 percent) and ‘improved information security strategy’ (52 percent).

In terms of how and where new threat intelligence capabilities may be applied, 44 percent of those asked said they had their own threat research/incident response team monitoring all security activity in place today, though the number is only 25 percent in Hong Kong compared to 52 percent in Mainland China.  Meanwhile, 30 percent of respondents claimed to outsource their cyber threat intelligence to a managed security service provider. Locally, the figure is lowest in Mainland China (16%) and highest in Malaysia (35%).

Supporting Quote

“IT decision makers understandably want more resources to combat threats from all directions, but the answer doesn’t have to come in the form of spending more or ripping and replacing existing solutions.  Fortinet’s open, adaptive security fabric shows how enterprises can achieve true end-to-end protection with security capabilities that share intelligence across the entire attack surface.  We are unique in providing the same breadth of capability and performance whether enterprises choose to retain in-house control of their own cybersecurity infrastructure, or use the services of an MSSP partner from our growing global community.” - Jeff Castillo, Country Manager, Fortinet Philippines

Note on Survey Methodology

The 2016 Fortinet Global Security Survey was a research exercise undertaken on behalf of Fortinet by independent market research company Lightspeed GMI. The survey involved 1,399 qualified IT decision makers in 13 countries – predominantly CIOs, CTOs, IT Directors and Heads of IT – from organisations with more than 250 employees.

The APAC figures given in this press release concern the 643 participants sampled from six markets: China, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand. 

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