Microsoft: Cybersecurity threats could cause Philippine organizations up to USD 3.5B in economic losses

Cybersecurity is something that is becoming a priority to different companies and organization. Especially after the findings from a study that Microsoft did.

Understanding the Cybersecurity Threat Landscape in Asia Pacific

A Frost & Sullivan study commissioned by Microsoft revealed an alarming piece of information. The potential economic loss for large-sized organization in the Philippines due to a cybersecurity incident can go up to USD 3.5 Billion. That is 1.1 % of the Philippine GPD of USD 305 Billion.

The study entitled "Understanding the Cybersecurity Threat Landscape in Asia Pacific: Securing the Modern Enterprise in a Digital World" aims to provide insight in the economic cost of cybersecurity breaches in the region. It also wants to share information about the gaps in different organizations' cybersecurity solutions. The study surveyed 1,300 businesses and IT decision makers ranging from mid-sizes organizations with 250 to 499 employees to large-sized organizations that has more than 500 employees.

The study reveals that more than half the organizations have either experienced a cybersecurity incident or are unsure if they ever had one due to lack of investigation or security checks.

In comparison, a large-sized organization can incur up to USD 7.5 Million in economic loss due to a cybersecirity attack which is more than 200 times higher to mid-sized organizations' loss of USD 35,000. Cybersecurity attacks can also have deeper effects such as job losses.

Frost & Sullivan devised an economic loss model based on macro-economic data and insights shared by the survey respondents. These are:

Direct - Financial losses associated with a cybersecurity incident including loss of productivity, fines, remediation costs and more
Indirect - The opportunity cost to the organization such as customer churn due to reputation loss
Induced - The impact of cyber breach to the broader ecosystem and economy such as the decrease in consumer and enterprise spending.

They believe that direct losses are pretty much the tip of the iceberg. They say that there are many other underlying losses that must be considered from both the indirect and induced perspectives.

There are the common and well known cybersecurity threats such as ransomware and data theft but in the Philippines the biggest threats are data exfiltration and data corruption which are the lowest to recover which result in the highest impacts in terms of losses.

These are the most common gaps in cybersecurity according yo the study:

• Cybersecurity Negligence and An Afterthought - Only 44% of the respondents consider cybersecurity before starting their digital transformation project. 56%, however, only think about cybersecurity after they already started the project or does not even consider it at all.
• Creating a Complex Environment - Contrary to popular belief, deploying a large number of cybersecurity solutions all at once does not help make your security stronger. 
• Lacking Cybersecurity Strategy - 46% of the respondents see cybersecurity as a means to protect their organization from cyberattacks while 25% believes that it is a digital transformation kick starter.

The future of cybersecurity lies in the hands of Artificial Intelligence. AI can quickly adapt into the ever changing and evolving for of cyberattacks with just data insight utilization. They can quickly analyze and respond to unpredictable patterns of attacks.