Malware-as-a-service and ransomware continue to be major threats for all enterprises this year, similar to last year, according to a cybersecurity firm.
The latest report by FortiGuard Labs, a global cyberthreat study and research team, found malware and ransomware remain the main threats organisations must prepare for as instigators have more sophisticated attack patterns and methods for delivering malware to their targets.
During the fourth quarter of 2022, FortiGuard Lab detected 1.5 million virus-related incidents per day, or around 132 million during the quarter, accounting for 2.25% of malware occurrences detected worldwide.
The number of botnet occurrences exceeded 224 million during the same period, accounting for 2.45% of detections worldwide.
Pakthapa Chatkomes, country manager of Fortinet, a leading global vendor of automated and end-to-end cybersecurity solutions, said vulnerabilities detected in both software and IT devices were identified 57.7 billion times in the fourth quarter of 2022, accounting for 1.94% of those detected worldwide.
Those vulnerabilities would continue to increase perpetually and become even more severe, she said.
According to Ms Pakthapa, the digital economy is estimated to account for 30% of Thailand's GDP by 2030. As a result, a cybersecurity and surveillance scheme is becoming more important to handle increasingly complicated threats and attacks embedded with artificial intelligence (AI), she said.
Despite increasing awareness of the threats and of cybersecurity, there is a shortage of cybersecurity skills -- a "literacy gap" -- that contributed to 72% of security breaches in Asia, said Fortinet.
According to the "Global 2022 State of Operational Technology and Cybersecurity Report", 88% of operational technology (OT) systems in Thailand experienced cyber-attacks.
OT refers to the use of hardware and software by industrial firms to control their industrial equipment or processes.
As more firms' OT systems are increasingly connected with the internet, this exposes them to more cyber-attacks.
Ms Pakthapa said OT security attacks have a significant impact on organisational productivity and profitability. The top three intrusions faced by organisations in Thailand are malware, ransomware and hackers.
The attacks have caused losses in revenue and data, in addition to affecting each corporation's brand credibility as a result of the security breaches.
She said Fortinet would focus more this year on serving companies seeking cybersecurity solutions, protecting their OT systems.
As more industrial companies have embraced digital transformation and fine-tuned their IT and OT systems to work together, this could expose them to cyber-attacks, resulting in the need to bolster their cybersecurity system, said Ms Pakthapa.
Fortinet Thailand was established in 2007. The company has provided 96,000 devices deployed in the country and has more than 1,000 business partners.
Fortinet's revenue posted 30% growth recently both globally and in Thailand thanks to growing awareness of cybersecurity among enterprises and corporations, especially in the critical information infrastructure sector.
