Synopsis

“In the past year alone, Malaysia had suffered multiple cyberattacks. These include the theft of personal data of 22.5 million people from a national registry and a payment gateway data breach.”, says New Straits Times report on 10th November 2022.The realities of cyber threats have been acknowledged and with the current attacks, Malaysia’s intention to go fully digital have been stalled or slowed down. This will reduce Malaysia’s competitiveness on the global stage where AI like ChatGPT requires a 100 % digital base platform. If the cyber security solution is meant for a companies’ asset, operations and management then why do the proposed solutions do not comply or not in line with such constraints, concepts and philosophies. The management, operational philosophies, organizational behaviour and other relevant considerations will be highlighted towards the definition of the cyber security problem so that a correct, long term and contextually appropriate solution can be applied. This presentation will also look at how the international resources can help Malaysia assist in its cyber threat combat holistically.

The current approaches in the Malaysian cybersecurity landscape will be looked at and the better approaches will be suggested. The talk will also look at defining the Malaysian cyber security issues, concerns, problems and shortcomings in a qualitative manner for a quantitative finalization. The overall cyber security / cyber threat concerns will be categorically broken down and the priorities assigned at the appropriate levels, at the right time and at the right place to have a holistic cyber defense against possible cyber threats. New, innovative and advanced approaches towards protecting the company assets will be emphasized and discussed in detail so that the ‘rat trap is not in the microwave oven, instead of the roof’.


Biodata of Speaker

Ir. (Dr.) S. Vignaeswaran PEPC has more than 30 years of working experience in the electrical, computer, IT, SCADA, project management and tendering field. He has been involved in state-of-the-art applications which includes cyber-security from the 1990s. He has an Electrical Engineering degree from Monash University (Clayton, Australia) and MSc in IT/BIS from University of Keele, UK. He continues to publish international papers in Engineering, IT, Computer Security and Project Management fields.

He has been the Client’s HOD (Electrical & Automation) in a large-scale Saudi Arabian project up to RM 8 billion in value. This has highlighted the scalability of projects and the errors within those projects. Additionally, he has worked in international projects that incorporates diverse project management approaches and requirements that exceed even those stated in the PMBOK. He is currently involved in a state-of-art utility automation project that has been applying new approaches in project management practices for the benefit of Malaysia specifically, and internationally in general.