TOKYO, Nov. 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- ESET, developer of award-winning cybersecurity software, today released data from the ESET 2017 SMBs survey showing that SMBs in Japan feel that funding is the biggest barrier to cybersecurity.
40% of Japan SMBs surveyed cited the lack of sufficient budget as the biggest barrier to cybersecurity, as compared to its counterparts in the region, including developed markets such as Singapore (34%) and Hong Kong (28%) and emerging markets such as India (24%) and Thailand (20%). On average, smaller SMBs (35%) are finding it particularly difficult to justify the investment needed especially when such funds could be used for other aspects of running the business.
With regards to the general cybersecurity landscape in Japan, more education may be required within SMBs given that Japanese SMBs have the lowest rate of cybersecurity awareness programmes for employees (24%), compared to India (77%), Thailand (71%), Singapore (66%) and Hong Kong (56%). Japanese SMBs also have the lowest rate of adoption of standard procedures for network security (28%), when compared with India (81%), Thailand (78%), Singapore (73%) and Hong Kong (67%).
"Cybersecurity measures are the first line of defence when it comes to defending against cyberattacks and businesses which do not see cybersecurity measures as a priority can be extremely vulnerable to cybercriminals," said Parvinder Walia, Sales and Marketing Director for Asia Pacific and Japan, ESET. "As Japan prepares for the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, cybersecurity will be even more critical and more needs to be done to educate SMBs and non-critical infrastructure sectors to be more active in their cybersecurity measures."
The latest findings from ESET mirror the data on the overall perceptions and activities around cybersecurity for the region. Businesses in the region appear to be stepping up efforts in the fight against cybercrime given that a majority of businesses, regardless of size or market region, reported utilizing cybersecurity solutions such as antivirus software and firewalls.
The survey polled 1,500 respondents with 300 respondents from small and medium businesses in each of the following markets: Singapore, Hong Kong, India, Thailand and Japan. The objective of the survey was to get a better understanding of the perceptions and activities related to cybersecurity of small and medium-sized businesses in the region. In particular, it sought to uncover what high-level business executives and IT professionals in APAC thought about issues such as the importance of cybersecurity to business operations, the existing policies and procedures they had in place, as well as their opinions on the need for advanced cybersecurity technology such as 2FA and encryption.
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