Acer beefs up cybersecurity for MSMEs with downloadable toolkit

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MORE than 50 percent of SMEs in APAC member-countries have experienced cyber-attacks in the last six months and more than 60 percent of companies collapse after such attacks, said Jason Chen, chairman and CEO of Acer. Medium, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) are particularly vulnerable to these attacks.

Chen attended the third APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC) meeting of the year held in the Philippines from July 27 to 30, wherein Acer’s subsidiary Acer Cyber Security Inc. (ACSI) shared its cybersecurity self-assessment toolkit designed for MSMEs in APEC member economies to help them quickly identify potential cyber threats.

ACSI is a cybersecurity company that focuses on related technical services and consultancy. It provides a full range of prevention, monitoring, and response services through its Security Operation Center (SOC) to enhance the resilience of enterprise operations.

CY Huang, technology vice president of ACSI, said the comprehensive toolkit, which can be downloaded for free, incorporates cutting-edge technology to assess and detect critical vulnerabilities in MSMEs’ systems. The toolkit can assess and detect errors in configurations, weak account credentials, major security updates, suspicious behavior indicating intrusion, and malicious software. It can be downloaded for free at at sat.acercsi.com includes the Philippines,” Chen said.

Given that MSMEs usually have limited resources, Chen says that the self-assessment toolkit is designed to help them easily generate a report. The idea is to help MSMEs understand their cyber security risks, which will then prompt them to seek help from reliable local vendors or take corrective action through detailed instructions provided in the report.

Chen added that Acer is willing to work with governments to secure MSMEs as small companies that need to improve their cybersecurity posture must first identify the system’s vulnerabilities, if any. We also talked to Chen about Acer’s commitment to sustainability and developments in the company.

Acer decided to take its environmental commitments further with Earthion, a platform that combines the strengths of the company, its supply chain partners, consumers (channels), and their employees.

“Earthion” is a blend of the words “Earth + Mission,” and is the name Acer has created to represent its mission to help tackle environmental