CSM-ACE 2019 attracted local and international cybersecurity professionals and industry leaders to come together to share their views and understand more about cybersecurity and the problems faced by organisations both in and outside Malaysia.



In his opening address, Tan Sri Datuk Sri Panglima Mohd Azumi Mohamed, Chairman Board of Directors for Cyber Security Malaysia (CSM) emphasized the importance of cyber defence in light of advancing cyber threats as it provides early warning indicators, cyber threat intelligence and incident response mechanisms.



“There are no boundaries for cyber threats and attacks. The private sector must work together and have conversations with the government to better protect themselves from such threats.”



In a session titled “Defending for a Successful Cyber Security Function – Embracing 5G Technology” earlier, Vladmir M. Yordanov, Cyber Security Officer, Global Cyber Security and Privacy Office, Huawei Technologies spoke about the importance of innovation and collaboration in both technology and cybersecurity.



“We need to build security through innovation. Security start with governance. By prioritizing cybersecurity and government ensuring management takes it seriously, cybersecurity can be built into strategies to integrate all business activities. Everything must be integrated, and everything must be secured. Otherwise there will be gaps that can be exploited.”



He added that people are the most important component in cybersecurity. It is a prerogative for organizations to have awareness, capability and assessment. A successful cybersecurity as he puts it will see a balance between people, tech and processes/government.



“It only takes one mistake and hackers will be able to exploit you.”



In another session, Vladmir Levtsov, VP Corporate Business, Kaspersky explained how state-sponsored attacks are increasing and are becoming a big concern.  He said every attack today is very organised and cyber criminals are very innovative in their attacks.



“The number of incidents are increasing because it requires additional resources to fix. Advanced threats are becoming a real problem for organisations. The only way to solve this is by having automated threat prevention systems like threat intelligence.”



Vladmir also suggested the need to have a national security operations centre. This will lead to the forming or a national threat hunting centre and also a threat analysis and forensic lab. Through this, the government will have a holistic view on the entire threat landscape across the country and be able to act on it.   



At the same event, CSM also introduces the Coordinated Malware Eradication and Remediation Platform (CMERP). The platform is an automatic malware detection and alert system developed using local expertise through public-private collaboration. It underwent a successful pilot deployment at University Teknikal Malaysia Melaka Research Centre before being phased into commercialization this year.



CMERP uses advanced malware detection and quarantine technology and is expected to significantly reduce the impact of malware threats for organisations especially the critical national information sectors. CMERP incorporates smart security features to detect, alert and mitigate cyber threats automatically. This is expected to raise the standard of cyber security and enhance the safety of data and information in Malaysia.