Observer says cybersecurity is an indicator of a country's investment competitiveness

Jakarta (ANTARA) - Observer from the Indonesia Digital Empowering Community (IDIEC) Tesar Sandikapura said cybersecurity has now become a strategic asset to increase competitiveness in attracting investors in the digital economy era. “The threat of cyber attacks has an increasingly significant influence on investment decisions. Investors do not only look at market potential, but also the level of security of the digital ecosystem,” Tesar said in Jakarta, Monday. He said cybersecurity has now become an indicator of a country’s investment competitiveness alongside political stability, legal certainty, and ease of doing business amidst rapid digital transformation and the increasing need for data centres. According to him, global investors tend to be more confident in investing in countries that have strong data protection regulations, readiness to face cyber incidents, and good information security governance. The frequency of cyber attack threats is no longer seen as merely a technological issue, but has become part of investment risk assessment, risk perception, adds mitigation costs, and even affects profit projections, especially in the digital, financial, manufacturing, and critical infrastructure sectors. Tesar said that with investment in data centre security and the digital ecosystem in Indonesia, a country will have higher competitiveness in attracting global investment and accelerating digital economic growth, as well as potentially providing a multiplier effect for various economic sectors. Such as encouraging the growth of cloud computing services, artificial intelligence (AI), financial technology (fintech), electronic commerce (e-commerce), digital health, digital education, logistics, telecommunications, energy, to the construction industry. “Even micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) will also benefit through easier and more efficient access to computing services,” he said. He said the large digital investment opportunities need to be balanced with the acceleration of cross-sector cybersecurity standard implementation, strengthening the implementation of personal data protection, increasing human resource capacity in the cybersecurity field, and strengthening collaboration between government, industry, and academia. In addition, he also suggested that Indonesia apply the principle of security by design, which is to make security a foundation from the planning stage of digital transformation, not just a complement after the system is running. Thus, it is hoped that digital economic growth can take place sustainably and be able to increase investor confidence.