Daily Briefing: Singapore is home to 3,598 ultra-high net worth individuals; Symantec identifies hacking group behind SingHealth's cyberattack

And Singapore-based field service automation platform Zinier bags US$22m in a funding round.

From Bloomberg:

According to KnightFrank’s 2019 Wealth Report, Singapore home to 3,598 ultra-high net worth individuals or those with at least US$30m.

The data highlight the concentration of the ultra-wealthy living in the biggest metropolises. Business opportunities, lifestyle desires, hospitals and transportation infrastructure are all factors that draw the super-rich to splash out on homes in large cities.

About half of this elite population have their main residences within a group of just 10 cities, according to Knight Frank’s 2019 Wealth Report, which lists London, Tokyo and Singapore as home to the most people worth at least $30 million.

The world had almost 200,000 ultra-high-net worth individuals last year, according to the broker’s wealth study, with more than two-thirds of them across Asia, Europe and North America. Europe is the biggest regional centre for this population globally, whilst the surge among Asian economies means the world will have more than 20 million people worth at least US$1m for the first time this year.

Read more here.

From Channel News Asia:

For the first time since last July, when the Government made public the cyberattack on SingHealth, a little-known hacking group has been publicly identified to be behind what is considered the most serious breach of personal data in Singapore’s history.

IT security vendor Symantec released a new study on Wednesday (Mar 6) identifying this attack group, which it dubbed Whitefly.

The group has targeted mostly Singapore organisations or multinational companies with a presence in Singapore since at least 2017, and is primarily interested in “stealing large amounts of sensitive information”, the report added.

Read more here.

From e27:

Singapore-based Zinier, AI-powered automation for field service, announces that it has closed its Series B funding round for US$22m led by returning backer Accel, along with Founders Fund, Nokia-Backed NGP Capital, Qualcomm Ventures, and France-based Newfund.

The funding is said to be used for platform expansion and accelerating the company’s growth to answer the demand in the field service organisations using intelligent automation.

Zinier presents an AI-driven platform of Field Service Elements that combines AI and insights to automate back-office functions with an all-in-one mobile experience for field technicians. It results in a device that helps monitoring equipment health and historical data to automatically trigger a preventative service request and assign it to the nearest qualified technician.

Read more here.