The digital economy continues to expand around the globe. As a result, more businesses are exploring newer areas in their digital journey. The advancements in technology especially in analytics and AI are becoming the go-to tools for businesses today. According to Google’s third Southeast Asia economy report, the region’s digital economy is forecast to reach US$240 billion by 2025.

The fast-paced growth of the digital economy has also led to a sharp increase in cybercrime. While businesses continue to get higher revenues from their digital expansion, the threats are greater as well. A study carried out by AT Kearney revealed that the top 1000 companies in Southeast Asia could potentially lose up to US$750 billion in market capitalisation as a result of cyber attacks.

Cyber threats are a growing concern for businesses, and many have invested heavily in defending against cyber attacks. Yet, despite their best efforts, cybercriminals keep finding new methods to wreak digital havoc. The bigger concern businesses have after a cyber attack is the ability to recover from it as well as the potential losses they face in that period.

This is where businesses need to be more resilient. Cyber resilience is the ability for a business to prepare for, respond to and recover from a cyber attack. Resilience is more than just preventing or responding to an attack. It also takes into account the ability to operate during and to adapt and recover from such an event. The good news is that with today’s advancements in technology and automation, businesses can opt for a more cyber resilient approach to secure their assets in the digital economy.

There are five lifecycle areas businesses need to consider in order to achieve cyber resilience; The lifecycle includes the ability to identify, protect, detect, respond and recover from adverse cyber incidents. By combining cybersecurity with backup and disaster recovery methods, a cyber resilience approach will be able to protect against, detect, respond and recover while minimising the impact on business.

The Cyber Resilience lifecycle has not changed, but the challenges posed to maintain a resilient cyber organisation continue to get more complex as the digital economy shapes the approach to business. Cybersecurity Asean will be organising an exclusive executive panel discussion to share advice and experience on the best practices for managing cyber resilience in the digital economy.

The panellists will include CyberSecurity Malaysia CEO, Dato’ Ts. Dr Haji Amirudin Bin Abdul Wahab, and IBM’s ASEAN Security Business Unit Executive, Malcolm Rowe. The roundtable will be moderated by Group Publisher of cybersecurityasean.com, Andrew Martin.

The panel will walk through the stages of the cyber resilience lifecycle and outline how businesses can craft a cyber-resilient plan that is built on an AI-powered Security Immune System. By reducing exposure to risk and learning from incidents, businesses will be able to be prepared and have an approach to cyber resilience that truly shines.