Are Singaporean companies unreasonably confident about cyber security?

8 in 10 assume they're well-prepared, yet half suffered an attack last year.

Findings from the survey conducted by BAE System revealed Singapore-based businesses believe they have the right security controls in place (89%), but that alarmingly, over 50% hit by cyber a attack in the last year.

It also noted that the average cost of the attack amounted nearly S$700,000.

The research also found more than one in five Singaporean businesses have not tested their incident response plans in at least six months. This is despite the fact a company’s ability to respond in the face of an attack is now almost as critical as preventing an attack, as the velocity of attacks grow and they become more targeted and sophisticated, said Gundeep Singh Sandhu, Vice President Cyber Defence Asia Pacific & Japan at BAE Systems Applied Intelligence.

The research, conducted in Singapore with over 100 IT decision makers, also found that less than a quarter of businesses are completely confident they could return to business as usual within 48 hours (24%). Around17% are not very confident or had no confidence at all that they could.

Moreover, 5% don’t have a cyber incident response plan and more than one in ten (11%) don’t know if they have the right security controls in place.