Cybersecurity Tool Investment Set to Surge in Asia-Pacific

The Asia-Pacific region will see a surge in its adoption of offensive and security tools over the next decade amid a worsening threat landscape and rising cybercrime losses, experts predict.

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Market researcher Allied Market Research this week forecast the global cyberwarfare market will be worth $127.1 billion by 2032, up from $37.5 billion last year.

“Cyberwarfare comprises offensive and defensive tactics, encompassing actions like cyberattacks, espionage and sabotage,” AMR said.

While North America will account for a sizable share of the market, the firm forecasts that the Asia-Pacific region will dramatically increase its cybersecurity investments, leading to compound annual growth rates of 16.4%.

Many countries in the region are already moving aggressively. Australia announced a comprehensive cybersecurity strategy on Wednesday as part of government efforts to make the nation a world leader in cybersecurity by 2030 and to prevent cybercriminals from inflicting billions in losses to organizations. The strategy calls for greater investments in Operation Aquila, a multi-agency law enforcement operation that uses offensive cyber capability as a criminal investigative tool to disrupt or prosecute cybercrime.

Ahead of the release of its national cybersecurity strategy, Australia announced a significant partnership with Microsoft, which will commit $5 billion to help federal agencies bolster the country’s resilience to online threats.

Australia’s approach reflects a gradual shift among Asia-Pacific countries toward adopting a more offensive approach to defeat cybercrime as threats continue to intensify, experts said.

Elsewhere in the region, BlackBerry recently signed a long-term software and services agreement to strengthen the Malaysian public sector’s cybersecurity posture.

Asia-Pacific: Under Fire

Based on its telemetry data, IBM’s found 31% of all incidents it tracked during 2022 – including but not exclusively tied to its customers’ and managed service subscribers’ endpoints – involved systems in Asia-Pacific, putting the region ahead of Europe at 28% and North America at 25%.

From March through May, BlackBerry tracked a nearly 40% increase in the number of cyberattacks targeting public sector entities in Australia, South Korea and Japan (see: APAC Countries Among Most Targeted in the World).

In the Far East, Japan is attempting to match its growing military capabilities with proactive cyber strategies and partnerships to face threats emanating from China, North Korea and Russia. The government in a strategy paper published in late 2022 said it would allow domestic agencies to target and neutralize attackers’ servers and infrastructure to blunt serious cyberattacks, even before execution. The government also plans to raise a 20,000-person division within its army to detect and destroy cybercriminal operations.

Earlier this month, national security representatives from the U.S., South Korea and Japan agreed to establish a high-level cyber consultative body to strengthen their joint cyber capabilities to deter North Korea from using cyberattacks to fund its weapons development program (see: US, Korea and Japan Team Up to Fight DPRK Cyberattacks).

Several Asia-Pacific countries over the past few months have tapped established cybersecurity vendors to bolster their offensive capabilities in cyberspace – a trend that AMR believes will continue over the next decade and make the region the fastest-growing adopter of cyberwarfare tools.