Data protection is the best foot forward

Israel is indeed a land of startups, with over 544 start-up companies offering cyber security services, based on data of Startup National Organization. These cyber security companies are also among the most lucrative as compared to startup of various other fields such as fintech companies, transportation, ecommerce, digital-healthcare and so on. According to Startup National Organization, the Israelis cyber-security firms attracted around USD 847.3 million so far this year, far eclipsing the next competitor, fintech at USD 402.3 million.

Why investing on cyber-security firms?

Having an increasing inter-connected world of nodes, an aspiring start up nationwide must first secure its data, encrypted sensitive information, protect intellectual property before reaping the profits from various commercial operations. That’s the reason why cyber-security firms have gotten much funding even more than the e-commerce and various financial technology start up.

Just in 2015, the cyber-attacks have been increased by 38% year-on-year or with an average of 161,927 attacks per day according to data gathered Startup National Organization. This figure is likely to grow yearly, as with more cyber-attacks expected to cost business at an average cost of USD 3.58 million per year. Plus, there is increasing attacks on government agencies on a daily basis at an alarming rates. Thus, it was estimated to the total costs of cyber-crime to the global economy at around USD 375-575 billion yearly.

Windfall investment for cyber-security firms

With much demands on cyber-security services, cyber-security firms have become a darling among the investors. For instances, the Israeli cyber-security firms drew 15% of the world’s investment meant for cyber-security sector. Furthermore, among the world’s top ten cyber-security firms, two of them hailed from Israel namely, Check Point and Cyber Ark with net worth of USD1.6 billion and USD1.8 billion respectively.

Having received much accolades for cyber security investment, Israel has become the home of Research & Development centers to global brand names like IBM, Oracle, Microsoft, Amazon.com Citibanks and so on. Collectively, the Israeli-based cyber security firms accounted 5% of the global market share, second only to the US.

The moral of story for Start-up nation wannabee?

Following the shadows of the trail-blazing Israel, the first step of cementing the start-up nations seem to focus on the security issues first. The more secured the platform, will give the talented programmers more confidence to use their creativity to develop new programmes.

Then, these new programmes need to be protected and be made safe from hacking to preserve data integrity.  Given the lucratively market of cyber-security sector, do not be surprised if Singapore decide to change course mid-way and focus on being a cyber security powerhouse instead.

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