An international cybersecurity company recently announced the opening of its first Transparency Centre in the Malaysian town of Cyberjaya.
Known globally for its anti-virus software, this centre is the company’s first in the Asia Pacific region. This centre was established in partnership with CyberSecurity Malaysia, the nation’s cybersecurity specialist agency.
Dr Haji Amirudin Bin Abdul Wahab, the CEP of CyberSecurity Malaysia was present at the event as cyber resilience is a key focus area for Malaysia.
CyberSecurity Malaysia has been at the helm of numerous cyber resillience initiatives and innovations for the nation. Their involvement in the establishment of the new centre is a strategic step in boosting the understanding of cybersecurity in the country as well as the region.
Recently, OpenGov Asia reported that CyberSecurity Malaysia and University Malaysia Terengganu (UMT) signed an MoU to collaborate in cybersecurity development. The focus was cloud computing, Industry 4.0 and Global Accredited Cybersecurity Education (ACE).
The opening of the centre is an indication of the way cyber resilience needs to move forward globally – from cybersecurity to cyber immunity. The shift means that evaluation of the cost of an attack should be more than the damage it causes (to the attacker, as a deterrent).
Experts the world over agree that not only do a radical new set of measures need to be undertaken to avoid such attacks but it is time to have a paradigm shift in the way organisations think.
During the inauguration, figures quoted show that ‘general malware’ today comprises 99.9% of cyber-attacks. From about 50 new viruses being detected in a day in 1998, the company now detects about 380,000 new ones in a single day.
It was also noted that the company already has two Transparency Centres in Europe and one Asia-Pacific and that the company is open to setting up another one if there is demand for it.
While Malayisa is host to the first Transparency Centre in the region, there are others on the horizon. For future sites and operation locations, India was listed as one country being considered, albeit not at this point in time.
Multiple centre is not about merely profits or expansion but an essential aspect of risk mitigation. In the eventuality of something going wrong (for example, a severe cyber-attack), operational continuity, financial loss questions political concerns must all be planned for at an early stages.
Thus, the question is how to overcome risks and geopolitics. All put together, it comes down to the two main concerns of software and data integrity.
The company’s latest Transparency Centre is part of its Global Transparency Initiative. Under the same, the company has also been developing the Big Bounty Program, through which it has resolved 66 bugs reported by security researchers and awarded almost US$45,000 in bounty rewards, according to a press release from the cybersecurity company.
According to another report, the centre is the company’s third code review facility in the world. It is alongside key cyber-related government agencies and companies in the country.
Like its counterparts in Zurich and Madrid, the Transparency Centre in Malaysia will serve as a trusted facility for the company’s partners and government stakeholders to come and check the source code of the company’s solutions.
The aim is to show its customers and government stakeholders that its products are 100 per cent trustworthy with the highest level of cybersecurity protection.
The launch also proves that the activities planned by the firm under its pioneering Global Transparency Initiative remain on track.
The new centre will also function as a briefing centre where guests will be able to learn more about the company’s engineering and data processing practices.
Government regulators and enterprise clients of the firm can request to review the company’s solutions and services including threat analysis, secure review, and the application security testing process.
