Most Singapore firms still can't keep up with security patches

Singapore businesses are experiencing more cyber attacks and still are unable to keep pace with the volume of patches. This has resulted in 58% of breaches that were linked to a vulnerability where a patch was available but not patched. 

Enterprises in the city-state saw an 18% climb in cyber attacks over the past year, with 88% noting they did not have sufficient resources to keep up with the number of software patches, found a study conducted by Ponemon Institute. Commissioned by ServiceNow, the polled 3,000 security professionals across nine countries including 183 in Singapore and 403 in Japan. 

Singapore businesses lost an average of 10 days coordinating with the relevant team prior to applying a patch and reported a 27% increase in downtime due to delays in patching vulnerabilities, compared to last year. Some 72% planned to hire an average of five staff members dedicated to patching over the next year.

However, their struggles with patch deployment were not necessarily the result of staffing issues. Some 67% of Singapore respondents pointed to an inability to have a common view of applications and assets across security and IT teams. Another 69% said they could not take critical applications and systems offline to patch them quickly, while 45% struggled to prioritise what needed to be patched. 

Some 49% noted that their organisations were dragged down by heavy manual processes required to patch vulnerabilities. 

Amidst the growing number of cyber attacks, 60% of Singapore security professionals believed hackers currently were ahead of businesses in their use of technology such as artificial intelligence and machine learning. Some 80% believed deploying automation tools helped them respond more quickly to vulnerabilities. 

Their counterparts in Japan appeared to have a tougher time coping with software patches, with 99% of respondents saying they lacked adequate resources to keep up with the volume. They also lose more time, 13 days, coordinating with the relevant team before a patch was applied. 

Globally, respondents reported a 24% increase in spending to prevent, detect, and remediate cyber attacks, compared to last year. However, on average, it took 12 days more to patch vulnerabilities, which they attributed to data silos and poor organisation coordination. 

For the most critical vulnerabilities, respondents across the nine markets took an average of 16 days to patch. Some 88% said they had to involve other departments within their organisation to deploy a patch and this created coordination issues that delayed patching by 12 days, on average, 

ServiceNow's general manager for security and risk, Sean Convery, said: "Companies saw a 30% increase in downtime due to patching of vulnerabilities, which hurts customers, employees, and brands. Many organisations have the motivation to address this challenge, but struggle to effectively leverage their resources for more impactful vulnerability management. Teams that invest in automation and maturing their IT and security team interactions will strengthen the security posture across their organisations." 

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