2 in 3 manufacturing, engineering firms hit by 3-5 cyberattacks in 2018

Ransomware, malware, and Google Drive breaches are the most prolific attack types in Singapore.

Nearly two-thirds of businesses in Singapore’s manufacturing and engineering industries have been breached three to five times in the last 12 months, cloud security services firm Carbon Black revealed. Financial institutions also witnessed the greatest growth in attack sophistication with 63% reporting that attacks had grown increasingly sophisticated.

Carbon Black studied different surveys across industries and found that overall, cyberattacks are causing regular security breaches affecting 96% of organisations surveyed. Ransomware is the most prolific attack type in Singapore, followed by malware and Google Drive breaches.

However, the human factor plays a big part in the attacks that lead to breaches, the survey found. Phishing attacks are at the root of 14% of successful breaches whilst process weakness was the identified cause in 12% of breaches.

Meanwhile, 79% of surveyed Singaporean organisations said they are actively threat hunting, with over a third (34%) having hunted for a threat for more than one year. Nearly half (46%) said they have started in the past year.

Nearly half (41%) said that threat hunting has significantly strengthened their defences, whilst 94% said that this has also strengthened their defences but not as significantly.