Tag Archive for: Singaporean

65% of Singaporean organizations hit by ransomware in 2021

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Ransomware continues to affect organizations all over the world. In Southeast Asia, Singapore is one of the most advanced countries in the world when it comes to tech adoption. However, with increased usage and dependence on technology, the risks that come with it increase as well.

According to a report by Sophos, 65% of Singaporean organizations surveyed in its State of Ransomware 2022 report were hit with ransomware in 2021. With a 25% increase since 2020, the average ransom paid by organizations in Singapore that had data encrypted in their most significant ransomware attack also increased by more than sixfold from US$187,500 in 2020 to US$1.16 million in 2021.

Despite having sufficient data recovery and backup capabilities, 48% of the organizations that had data encrypted still paid the ransom to get their data back. The report summarises the impact of ransomware on 5,600 mid-sized organizations in 31 countries across Europe, the Americas, Asia-Pacific, Central Asia, the Middle East, and Africa, with 965 sharing details of ransomware payments.

For Chester Wisniewski, a principal research scientist at Sophos, the survey showed that the proportion of victims paying up continues to increase, even when they may have other options available. He believes there could be several reasons for this, including incomplete backups or the desire to prevent stolen data from appearing on a public leak site.

“In the aftermath of a ransomware attack, there is often intense pressure to get back up and running as soon as possible. Restoring encrypted data using backups can be a difficult and time-consuming process, so it can be tempting to think that paying a ransom for a decryption key is a faster option. It’s also an option fraught with risk,” commented Wisniewski.

He also pointed out that organizations don’t know what the attackers might have done, such as adding backdoors, copying passwords, and more. If organizations don’t thoroughly clean up the recovered data, they’ll end up with all that potentially toxic material in their network and potentially exposed to a repeat attack.

The report also showed that 64% of attacks resulted in data being encrypted, a…

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The Singaporean Startup Expimont Building the Future of Website Security

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In a report by positive technologies, as much as 85 percent of the web applications had vulnerabilities that allow attacks against users. This is the figure that Singaporean startup Expimont wishes to combat.

“The internet has been expanding at an extraordinarily quick pace; however, cyber security has not managed to keep up,” says Expimont CEO Ivan Persson. He explains that the majority of web applications today were not designed with cyberthreats in mind and proceeds to state that this is a significant issue and is a threat to both companies and users alike.

Expimont has developed a SaaS solution that significantly reduces the chance of data theft and other cybercrime by identifying malicious requests and taking appropriate action before they reach their customers’ servers. In combination with this, they’ve developed a dashboard that allows its users to adjust security settings and view statistics regarding their protected websites.

Although there are undoubtedly many websites that were designed and secured against the threats of the time, Ivan says, most do not keep a dedicated security team in perpetuity. As a result, they will be susceptible to zero-day exploits and other new cyberthreats that pop up all the time.

“Using Expimont is more scalable, cost-effective, and reliable than on-premise solutions,” he says. “We’ve secured and accelerated dozens of web applications to date, and we’ve received great feedback.”

Today, companies are not left with many choices — they can opt for a dedicated security team, ignore the topic altogether, or go for a solution like that which Expimont provides. He explains that opting for a dedicated security team may allow for more specialized solutions though they’re in most cases extraordinarily costly and are not as reliable in the long term.

“To embrace the future, we will start accepting cryptocurrency as a payment method, and we stand behind the principle of privacy,” he concludes with.

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Singaporean man pleads guilty to spying for China in the US – CNN

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  1. Singaporean man pleads guilty to spying for China in the US  CNN
  2. China Operative Pleads Guilty to Spying in U.S.  The Wall Street Journal
  3. How a Chinese agent used LinkedIn to hunt for targets  BBC News
  4. Chinese agent pleads guilty in US to espionage  The New Daily
  5. Singapore spy case reawakens fears China recruiting on island state  Reuters
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