COMPUTEX 2022 Symposium: The Present and Future of Cybersecurity under the Wave of Digital Transformation

Industries across the board will experience their own digital transformations, whether out of a desire to upgrade their operations or out of necessity due to external & internal factors. Implementing new technologies will also expose the users to potential cybersecurity risks that they might not have any experience in dealing with. Focusing on this phenomenon, the COMPUTEX 2022 Symposium discussed the cybersecurity trends in the era of rapid and ongoing digital transformations.

The speakers in the forum include: Mr. Patrick Tung, Senior Industry Analyst & Program Manager of MIC; Mr. James J. L. Liu, President of SYSCOM Computer Engineering; Mr. Andrew Chen, Director Product Ops & Service Management of Trend Micro; Mr. Abbas Kudrai, APAC Chief Cybersecurity Advisor of Microsoft; and Ms. Sylvia Huang, Assistant Vice President of ITTS x TCFC. Focusing on 2 major themes of digital transformation and cybersecurity, the speakers discussed the ongoing trends, how Taiwan can actively participate and contribute in the trends, as well as future expectations.

Increased Security Threats in the Current Era

Starting his speech, Mr. Tung pointed out that the current growth of IoT, cloud computing, 5G, and other new emerging technologies have created numerous business opportunities for smart businesses. On the other hand, this ICT boom also brings new cybersecurity risks in addition to the existing ones. The increase in cybersecurity incidents prove how important cybersecurity is to the corporate infrastructure. It has increasingly become the priority issue in the digital transformation as well as business continuity planning. As digital borders get blurred, personal awareness becomes the key to digital border defense and security measures must be deployed beforehand to prepare and plan for cybersecurity threats. Many businesses currently lack personal awareness in regards to cybersecurity and the key starting point will be to adopt zero trust policies.

Digital Transformation is a Business Opportunity

Mr. Liu defines digital transformation as “a process that combines digital technology with existing business models and develops new digital cultures to complete the transformation.” This process will be centered on the customer value & experience and the organization is constantly updated & transformed. An appropriate business model is essential to various phases of industry development as repeating success becomes the focus of digital transformation. Mr. Liu further emphasized that digital transformation is more than just buying machinery and equipment. It is also the supply chain & material management, production scheduling, and more as it drives industrial upgrading. Successful models can be duplicated, but companies aiming to replicate the success will need to run a gap analysis, then start the business process, re-engineering, as well as software/ hardware customization.

Zero Trust and Always Verify

According to Mr. Chen, zero trust policies where constant verification is needed is not an innovation, but a revolutionary practice. In his experience, cybersecurity customers want to have a way to intelligently verify every user, validate every device, and limit access. Zero trust will allow businesses to gain visibility and continuous assessment to be more confident in determining the best methods to enforce secure access. Secure access is an opportunity to manage most of the organization's assets, but there is still the possibility of access by rogue machines. Mr. Chen stated that zero trust starts with a mindset, not a product, and needs to create a viable visibility. Risk visibility will be needed for better decision making and ultimately to help organizations enforce secure access intelligently.

A Growing Sophisticated Threat

Mr. Kudrai stated that human operated ransomware targeting businesses has been on the increase. In contrast to the commodity ransomwares that commonly spread through a blast to random targets, human operated ransomwares are more manual and require more human effort when attacking their targets. The attackers will commonly spend time and effort to research their targets and create footprints to understand the targets’ network. From there, they will slowly extort data and remove their tracks. These highly sophisticated attacks target specific businesses and are constantly evolving. To protect against human operated ransomware, businesses will have to be very creative and understand what and how the attackers do things. From there, they can follow the human operated ransomware kill chain to protect themselves.

New Avenues for Intrusions

Ms. Huang pointed out that cyberattacks have grown rapidly, rated as one of the top 5 risks in 2020. Cyber threats have also become increasingly common as connected devices become a potential entry point for cyber threats. As a key manufacturer of semiconductors, a successful cyber-attack on Taiwan will have global impacts. About 20 to 40 million cyberattacks happen every month and 525 cases were reported in 2020 with victims including 15 leading Taiwanese companies. Public and private organizations will have to cooperate to fight back against attackers. According to Ms. Huang, there are 5 main steps to reduce cybersecurity risks: zero trust policy, password upgrade & avoid repetition, vulnerability patch, EDR monitoring, and finally a breach response plan and contingency plan for the worst.

Watch the full forum in the COMPUTEX V YouTube Channel

About COMPUTEX Symposium

COMPUTEX is one of the key B2B exhibitions for global ICT procurement. To help manufacturers expand to the international market and overcome time zones and geographical distance constraints, TCA will hold the COMPUTEX Symposium in both online and offline formats. The topics in the forum will include multiple topics such as digital security, smart technology, 5G/B5G, Metaverse, etc., featuring industry leaders and relevant speakers to discuss the latest trends and innovations.

The next COMPUTEX Symposium will take place on January 12. The forums will discuss New Smart Technology Experiences Lead Life into A New Era. Follow us on our social media channels to get the latest news and join us live in the forum premiere.

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COMPUTEX TAIPEI will return in 2022 from May 24 to 27. The exhibition will take a hybrid physical & digital format to make sure exhibitors can have a broader reach both in Taiwan and globally. Global exhibitors are welcome to register for the online COMPUTEX CYBERWORLD platform. Follow us on our social media channels to get the latest news from COMPUTEX or subscribe to our newsletter for more information.