Cloud Security Alliance Releases Malaysia Financial Sector Cloud 
Adoption Report

Survey offers insight into areas of cloud adoption, IT security budgets, cloud computing, cyber security skills

KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA – August 20, 2018 – The Cloud Security Alliance (CSA), the world’s leading organization dedicated to defining and raising awareness of best practices to help ensure a secure cloud computing environment, and Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) today released the results of a joint survey, Cloud Adoption in the Malaysia FSI Sector, which surveyed IT and security professionals in Malaysia’s FSI about their cloud service adoption plans and priorities. The results were announced in Kuala Lumpur at the inaugural CSA Malaysia Summit, where Dato’ Ng Wan Peng, COO of MDEC; Jim Reavis, co-founder & CEO of CSA; and Ramesh Narayanaswamy, CIOO of CIMB Group Holdings were among the keynote speakers.

As a part of the Summit, CSA also organized a Roundtable on “Banking 4.0 - Digital Transformation, Opportunities & Challenges” aimed to work on the next level study of the survey conducted. This Roundtable was sponsored by Microsoft.

Although heavily regulated internationally, today’s financial services institutions (FSI) face similar pressures experienced by their compatriots in lesser-regulated sectors. There is an urgent need to embrace digital transformation to leapfrog competitors, enhance agility, and increase efficiency to better serve the modern digital consumer in this fast-paced economy. Significantly higher confidence levels in cloud security today have rendered the cloud a key enabler in overcoming these challenges. Seeing this trend, CSA and MDEC jointly conducted the “Cloud Adoption in the Malaysia FSI Sector” survey to gain a deeper understanding of the current and future state of cloud adoption in the region.

“Besides raising awareness of cloud adoption in the FSI sector, the survey also aimed to uncover obstacles that may have impeded cloud adoption by the banking sector within Malaysia,” said Dr. Lee Hing-Yan, Executive Vice President, CSA Asia Pacific. “Although separate studies have shown that the Malaysian government has done well in putting strong e-government plans in place, the government can further accelerate cloud adoption by introducing progressive guidelines. The increased clarity will help FSIs to continue reaping the benefits of cloud, while maintaining adherence to regulations.”

MDEC's Director/Enabling Ecosystem Wan Murdani Wan Mohamad, Ir, commented:

“Malaysia’s shift towards becoming a developed, sustainable digital economy requires the transformative use of a secure and robust cloud ecosystem. As indicated by the study, a vital aspect of Malaysia's transformation encompasses successful cloud adoption, which means that we must prioritise the future-proofing of our cybersecurity sector as an important aspect of our drive to build on the growth of cloud adoption by the FSI and, indeed, all sectors of our economy.”

The report published key findings in the areas of cloud adoption, IT security budgets, cloud computing, and cyber security skills, as well as cloud service compliance and regulations. Among the main findings:

• Sixty five percent (64.7 %) of the FSI in Malaysia said they are developing a cloud strategy, while 17.6 percent have already developed a cloud strategy. The remaining 17.6 percent have a strict no-cloud policy.
• Twenty four percent (23.5 %) of respondents mentioned that no cloud service data security and compliance regulations are predetermined in their organization, while 11.7 percent mentioned that their organizations have some form of cloud service data security and compliance management.
• The majority of the survey respondents pay considerable attention to international standards when selecting a cloud service provider (CSP). This suggests that certification should be an important benchmark for CSPs as a measure and demonstration of their compliance with industry standards.
• Fifty three percent (52.9%) of the respondents said that the top cloud threat in their organization is the lack of security assessments on cloud services provided by CSPs. In other words, there is a lack of necessary knowledge to properly address the challenges, with some being unaware even when these threats occur.
• Due to the lack of commitment at the senior level, 58.8 percent of all cloud computing and cybersecurity professionals indicated they have never participated in nor organized any cloud application development or cloud-security-related training.

“We would like to thank MDEC for their ongoing support and contributions to this survey and to our broader efforts to understand and educate the market on cloud adoption in APAC,” added Dr. Lee.

CSA has conducted similar adoption studies in China (https://www.csaapac.org/fsisurvey.html) and India (https://www.csaapac.org/2016-cloud-adoption-and-security-in-india-survey-report.html). Cloud Adoption in the Malaysia FSI Sector paper is a free resource. Download the full survey report now.