Trend Micro invests in new Singapore office as regional HQ for Asia Pacific, Middle East, and Africa

Source: Trend Micro. Thakkar (left) with Simzer (right) at the EBC.

Trend Micro, a global cybersecurity solutions provider, has announced that its new office is the headquarters for Asia Pacific, Middle East, and Africa (AMEA). AMEA is the fastest-growing region for the company, contributing 16% of total revenues in 2018.

The new 12,000 sq ft office space in Singapore is home to a team of cybersecurity professionals whose roles span technical, sales, research, operations, marketing, legal, HR, finance, and support. The regional leadership team also sits in Singapore.

Singapore was chosen for its strong cybersecurity vision and wide-ranging influence across the region, the company said. In accordance with the move, Trend Micro is also setting up a software-as-a-service (SaaS) endpoint security data centre in Singapore, strengthening data sovereignty for local customers.

“Singapore is the perfect location for us to set up the regional headquarters. The country is the cybersecurity hub in ASEAN; has demonstrated a strong vision for cybersecurity for the next ten years; and has a diverse talent pool,” said Dhanya Thakkar, VP, AMEA, Trend Micro.

“With Singapore serving as the command post, we hope to foster closer collaboration between different teams in AMEA, serve our regional customers better, and tap into unexplored growth opportunities the region has to offer.”

In addition to the new regional office, Trend Micro is unveiling a suite of new business initiatives for AMEA and Singapore.

The company is building a new managed detection and response (MDR) security operations center (SOC) based in the Singapore office. It will be part of Trend Micro’s global follow-the-sun MDR SOC operations, which currently span four strategic locations across North America, Europe, and Southeast Asia.

Together with the global MDR team, the Singapore-based SOC will focus on helping customers monitor threat activity on a 24x7 basis across their endpoints and network; sweep for indicators of compromise; and investigate the root cause of cyberattacks to determine what exactly happened. This allows companies to rely on Trend Micro to protect them instead of struggling to hire the highly skilled security specialists required to do the job.

Singapore was chosen for two primary reasons. Firstly, as cybersecurity regulations and cyberattacks have intensified over the years, local companies are under increasing pressure to amp up their threat hunting and investigation capabilities, creating a surging appetite for MDR services. Secondly, Singapore, as the education hub in Southeast Asia, has a diverse talent pool ripe for developing the next generation of MDR specialists. In addition, Trend Micro already works with the AWS and Azure data centres in Singapore.

Trend Micro is also opening a state-of-the-art executive briefing centre (EBC) designed to host customised, strategic cybersecurity briefing sessions for select customers and government officials from the AMEA region.While EBCs are typically focused on a vendor's product, Trend Micro's is more wide-ranging.

"(Customers) don't want to hear a vendor pitch. What customers really want to know is what's going on in the cybersecurity world. How do solutions come together, what's missing, what is going on in next five to 10 years," Thakkar noted.

Furnished with technology from Trend Micro and its partners, the centre delivers tailormade experiential briefings on the latest threat research, changing IT landscape, various reference architectures, customer case studies, and more. The company is also able to simulate the server environment the customer is in plus cyberattack scenarios, and demonstrate how various attacks can be countered effectively.

The company is further bringing its Certification Program in IT Security (CPITS) to Southeast Asia and Singapore, after gleaning huge success in other countries, including KSA. The certificate-granting programme will take place over an intensive two months. The objective is to address the global security skills shortage through arming students with hands-on training covering soft skills, technical knowledge, and the nuts and bolts of running a cybersecurity business, helping them launch a fulfilling career in cybersecurity.

Students from Southeast Asia including Singapore who graduate from computer science-related majors are eligible to apply to the programme. Each cohort will consist of 25 individuals, all of whom will receive a stipend. Accommodation is provided as required as well.

The registration process will commence in the second half of the year, with passion and grit being key criteria for selection, as opposed to academic merit. According to Trend Micro, many CPITS graduates are hired by the company, or by its partners and customers. Of the 300 graduates so far, 96% have found a job either at Trend Micro or in the partner community.

“Both the MDR SOC and the EBC present new ways to deepen engagement with our prospective and existing customers. In the meantime, we also feel the social responsibility of incubating the next wave of cybersecurity professionals for Singapore and for the region,” said Nilesh Jain, VP, Southeast Asia and India.

Trend Micro has some 500,000 commercial customers, tens of millions of consumer customers, and 6,500 full-time employees in over 45 countries. In 2018, the company saw over 2,800 new customers for its hybrid cloud security products, more than 1,100 new customers for network defence, and 13,400+ new customers for user protection. 

"Our leave-behind is please try our product. We believe that our products will speak for themselves," said Kevin Simzer, COO, Trend Micro.