More than two-fifths (43%) of Singapore IT leaders are not “fully confident” in their ability to respond to data, malware phishing, supply chain, ransomware, cloud, IoT and application attacks, according to a new global survey by Rackspace Technology.
The survey was conducted by Coleman Parkes Research in September 2021. Findings are based on the responses of 1,420 IT decision-makers across manufacturing, retail, hospitality/travel, healthcare/pharma/biomedical, government and financial services sectors in the Americas, Europe, Asia and the Middle East.
Out of the 120 respondents in Singapore, fewer than half (45%) say they can effectively respond to incidents, mitigate threats (42%), or understand the nature of the threats they are facing (40%) when it comes to organizations’ attack response capabilities.
The survey also revealed widespread uncertainty that organisations possess the talent and skills to meet cybersecurity challenges, with the majority of (90%) of local respondents saying their firms lack the necessary skills and expertise to respond to a growing array of threats.
“The expanding use of the cloud, IoT and applications, as well as a tight talent market and an increase in remote work – largely driven by the pandemic – have made the security environment much more challenging,” said DeVerter , chief evangelist at Rackspace Technology. “Few organisations actually have the people, processes, and technologies that match a mature cybersecurity model.”
Half (52%) of Singapore respondents cite the growth of cloud and IoT as key challenges, followed by new threats and attack methods (47%) and the growth in data volumes, digital operations, and remote work (45%), which has resulted in increased opportunities for attackers.
More than half (52%) of Singapore survey respondents say they are having difficulty recruiting and retaining cybersecurity talent, with the greatest skills gaps in the areas of network security (34%) and cloud security (32%) which respondents also identified as their most critical roles.
Across the businesses, IT leaders cite lack of expertise (90%), lack of resources (86%) and lack of time (78%) as the most pressing cybersecurity and compliance challenges they face.
The top strategies to fill any gaps of cybersecurity talent in Singapore include training internal staff (51%), external recruitment agencies (47%) and relying on third-party security experts (46%).
“As with many countries, Singapore face the difficulty of recruiting and retaining cybersecurity talent with network security and cloud security being the top skills in demand ,” said Sandeep Bhargava, Rackspace Technology’s managing director of Asia Pacific and Japan.
“This calls for the need for businesses to evaluate how they can enlist third-party security help, so that they can focus on building their competitive advantage as a company,” said Bhargava.
