THE highest number of organizations that reported they had succumbed to a serious data breach or failed a compliance audit last year was recorded in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) region.
According to the “Insider Threat Report” by Vormetric Inc., the number was at 48 percent.
The San Jose, California-headquartered firm said it released its report to provide “present-day insight and opinion into the host of data-breach threats that enterprise organizations face on a daily basis.”
“Insider attacks on corporate data and the resultant losses to affected businesses have been relentless during the last 12 months. The negative effect on the victims, often well-known organizations, makes recovery difficult and the impact long-lasting.”
The private data security company said its report is based on survey responses from more than 800 senior business managers and information technology professionals in major global markets, roughly half from the US and the rest from the UK, Germany, Japan and Asean countries.
Still, Vormetric said, the Asean sector, which includes the key business markets of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand, “have specific data protection and insider threat protection issues that differentiate it from the US, EMEA [Europe, Middle East and Africa] and near neighbor Japan.”
Respondents from the Asean, to note, placed their levels of concern on security risk at a high of 86 percent. The global average is 70 percent, while the 81 percent of respondents in the US are more worried than they should be about exposure to risk.
“Another significant difference is the Asean view on the type of user that is likely to cause the biggest threat,” Vormetric said.
Respondents from Japan, which is the most powerful and the most visible technology market within the region, placed ordinary employees (56 percent) at the top of their hit list. On the other hand, Asean companies at 14 percent decided that ordinary employees were the safest group and placed them at the bottom.
Respondents in Asean took the global position by placing privileged users in the top position of their at-risk list, but they also achieved a response level that was well above the global average.
At 62 percent the Asean focus on privileged users was higher than in any other market including the US at 59 percent. “Overall this doesn’t look like a balanced position,” Vormetric said.
As well as the higher than average response rates against privileged users, partners with internal access at 60 percent received an equally negative response within the Asean region; whereas other equally deserving threat groups were being almost completely ignored.
Globally 89 percent of respondents felt that their organization was now more at risk from an insider attack; 34 percent felt very or extremely vulnerable.
“From an overall security perspective it was good to see that a high proportion of organizations were looking to increase or at least maintain their security-spending levels in their attempt to protect themselves against insider threat activity,” Vormetric said.
Dennis Estopace