Contextualizing Malaysia’s Cybersecurity Agenda
This chapter reviews Malaysia’s approach to cybersecurity. It begins by considering the country’s economic priorities, which have been and will remain the catalyst for the government’s push into cyberspace and, consequently, the development of its cybersecurity capabilities. The chapter then examines the government’s efforts to secure those economic priorities by protecting its critical national information infrastructure. It explores the country’s nation-building agenda in cyberspace, as well as the resultant tensions between keeping the Internet free and open for robust digital innovation on the one hand and preserving political stability and security on the other. The chapter also provides a brief overview of other cybersecurity trends in Malaysia, including cybercrime and hacking. Even though Malaysia played an active and valuable role in the United Nations (UN) Group of Governmental Experts (GGE) on Developments in the Field of Information and Telecommunications in the Context of International Security from 2015 to 2016, the government’s emphasis on the economic benefits of cyberspace has narrowed its focus to preserving and optimizing the technical utility of the Internet in order to facilitate the digital economy.