Policy Analysis: Bridging the Cybersecurity Divide Between Large Enterprises and SMEs

Abstract

The Word Economic Forum’s 2017 report on digital transformation said that business leaders must undertake five action plans to be digitally ready. One of these steps is to improve cybersecurity, a critical factor in the success and survivability of any digital enterprise. This raises important questions for small and medium enterprises, which have limited resources and budgets. Can they afford the high price of cybersecurity to stay safe and survive? And what about cybersecurity divide between large enterprises that can afford state-of-the-art cyber defences and those that cannot? In this paper, we examine these inequalities and their impact on SMEs, industries, and nations; and the policies needed to ensure that SMEs are adequately secured in cyberspace against the context of Singapore’s push for SMEs to capture the growth opportunities in the digital economy.