Malaysia records 84 million cyber attacks per day in 4Q 2022

KUALA LUMPUR - Malaysia experienced an average of 84 million cyber attacks every day during the fourth quarter of 2022 (4Q 2022), according to global cybersecurity solutions provider Fortinet.

Fortinet Southeast Asia and Hong Kong vice-president Peerapong Jongvibool said that the attacks included viruses, botnets, and exploits detected by its FortiGuard Labs cybersecurity solutions, making the country one of the most vulnerable locations in the region.

According to FortiGuard Labs, the cyber threats in Malaysia registered a total of 61.1 million virus detections, 50.2 million botnet attacks, and 7.5 billion exploit detections throughout 4Q 2022.

"(By comparison), cyber threats on the global scale in 4Q 2022 recorded around 200 billion attacks per day.

"Fortinet was able to detect the threats and neutralise them with our artificial intelligence (AI) technology as well as machine learning capabilities," he told Bernama in an exclusive interview recently.

Jongvibool said that exploits have become the latest technique adopted by cyber attackers when they planted malware on their target's devices while waiting for the right time to execute the attack.

"The trend of cyber attacks is definitely going up every day as more people are adopting digitalisation in their daily business, making them more exposed.

"In a nutshell, the attackers are now smarter (and) they are now more weaponised in their planning by using the AI because it is not for fun anymore but for serious business," he said.

Jongvibool said that notable challenges faced by the cybersecurity industry today would include the complexity of the digital environment where applications are distributed, users working from anywhere, more devices attached to applications, and a cybersecurity skills shortage.

He highlighted that Fortinet is now the provider of nearly half of the firewall deployments around the globe, a significant achievement and improvement over the past year.

"Last year we only talked about one-third of the whole firewall deployments in the world belong to us, now we are almost hitting the 50 per cent mark and we are able to detect more cyber attacks in the market.

"From the global perspective, we are able to show very detailed data of new techniques adopted by the attackers and how they plan their attack, with what kind of malware or exploit they are using right now," he added.

Moving forward, Jongvibool said that Fortinet's plans would extend beyond just technological innovation as it set targets to achieving a sustainable society and closing the cybersecurity skills gap in the market.

He said the company aims to be carbon neutral by 2030, with the adoption of higher power efficiency application-specific integrated circuit chipset on their design that generally consumes less power when operating.

"Fortinet also pledged to provide training to one million people in cybersecurity by 2026, as we have achieved our initial target of one million people certified with Fortinet Network Security Expert (NSE) way before 2023," he added. - BERNAMA