In the wake of the recent ransomware attack on Indonesia’s Financial Services Authority (OJK) on October 2, 2023, it’s high time we address a common misconception prevalent among many Indonesian businesses—the notion that antivirus software alone is sufficient to protect against cyber threats.

The OJK incident, which stemmed from a single employee inadvertently clicking on a malicious link, underscores the vulnerability of organisations relying solely on antivirus programs. It’s a stark reminder of why a more comprehensive cybersecurity strategy is imperative, especially for companies handling vast amounts of sensitive data.

The antivirus myth

In Indonesia, many individuals and businesses have long placed their faith in antivirus software as the ultimate defence against cyber threats. While antivirus tools are undoubtedly valuable in detecting and preventing known malware, the evolving landscape of cyberattacks demands a broader and more proactive approach.

Also Read: How to achieve cybersecurity independence in Southeast Asia

The reality

• Ransomware strikes unpredictably: Cybercriminals are constantly developing new tactics and malware variants, making it difficult for antivirus programs to keep up.
• Human error is a significant risk: Regardless of the strength of your antivirus software, the weakest link in your cybersecurity chain is often human behaviour. Cybercriminals exploit this vulnerability through social engineering tactics.
• Comprehensive cybersecurity is essential: A comprehensive cybersecurity strategy is a must to protect your organisation effectively. This includes employee training, regular security assessments, intrusion detection systems, and incident response plans.
• The role of ransomware rollback: For organisations dealing with substantial volumes of critical data, having a solution that includes ransomware rollback is paramount. In the event of a ransomware attack, the ability to recover data swiftly and securely can make all the difference.

A call to action

The OJK incident should serve as a wake-up call for businesses across Indonesia. It’s time to dispel the myth that antivirus software alone is enough to safeguard your organisation’s valuable data.

Instead, we need to embrace a more holistic approach to cybersecurity—one that combines advanced technology, employee awareness, and robust recovery solutions like ransomware rollback.

By recognising the evolving threat landscape and investing in comprehensive cybersecurity measures, Indonesian businesses can better protect themselves from the ever-present danger of cyberattacks.

The lesson from OJK is clear: in today’s digital age, an antivirus alone is no longer sufficient. It’s time to bolster our defences and make cybersecurity a top priority.

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Singapore-based manufacturing-tech startup Factorem has closed its seed funding round led by Enterprise Singapore’s investment arm SEEDS Capital and robotics-focused venture builder Blue InCube Ventures.

The investment size remains undisclosed.

Also Read: Phasio lands US$2.5M to connect manufacturers, customers in real-time via digital storefront

The startup will use the capital to accelerate platform development to achieve faster lead times and more accurate quoting for broader coverage, optimise the manufacturing process further, and expand its global customer base.

The funds will also boost Factorem’s supply chain capacity and capabilities in crucial SEA markets like Malaysia and Vietnam.

“The funding will enable us to continue transforming the world of custom manufacturing in Southeast Asia and beyond,” said Factorem Co-Founder and CEO Alexandra Zhang.

Established in 2020, Factorem is a cloud platform providing end-to-end fulfilment services tailored for on-demand, low volume, and no minimum order quantity parts. The platform offers access to various manufacturing technologies, including CNC Machining, 3D printing, sheet metal fabrication, and surface treatment.

Its core mission is to offer a seamless and hassle-free experience for businesses seeking bespoke and complex custom parts across various industries, such as industrial automation, robotics, biotechnology, and telecommunications.

“We are making ordering bespoke parts as easy as ordering an item from an e-commerce store. At the same time, we are continuously building value-added services for our manufacturing partners and automating workflows,” added Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer Hardik Dobariya.

Also Read: Industry 4.0 in ASEAN: Creating factories of the future

The company claims since our last founding three years ago, Factorem’s revenue has grown exponentially by 300 per cent y-o-y, with a portfolio of clients that spans both local and overseas markets.

Factorem’s manufacturing network has grown 10x from ten factories in 2020 to 100 highly vetted factories across Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, and South Korea.

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Image Credit: Factorem.

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Account Lab was formed in 2023 following the merger of Keystone and UniPass to democratise access to Web3 through wallet innovations.

Based in Singapore, Account Labs is developing next-gen Web3 Account Abstraction solutions, making decentralised account ownership and management a good experience for individual users and accelerating the adoption of blockchain.

The firm recently raised US$7.7 million in a funding round from Amber Group, MixMarvel DAO Ventures, and Qiming Ventures as it prepared to launch its consumer-focused UniPass wallet app on Polygon.

e27 spoke with Account Labs CEO Lixin Liu to learn more about the company’s offerings, goals, account abstraction, and the entry of Grab into the Web3 space.

Excerpts:

How do you plan to utilise this investment to further your goals in Web3 adoption?

Account Labs is utilising the funds to drive the upcoming wave of mass crypto adoption through peer-to-peer (P2P) stablecoin transfers. This is what the UniPass wallet app offers. The funding will also help with the go-to-market plans for the wallet, starting with the Philippines.

What sets UniPass apart from other wallets in the market?

Most Web3 wallets still have high barriers to entry, requiring users to have a deep understanding of the Web3 world. Most need complex seed phrases to even access and only work within a narrow range of compatibility. Also, many wallets from centralised providers are exposed to high risks, as users can lose their assets, as we have seen with FTX and many other examples.

Also Read: Web3: idealistic vision or inevitable future? Insights from expert Chris Sirise 

Account Labs aims to take Web3 to the mainstream by removing the major bottlenecks to onboarding users to Web3 wallets. With UniPass Wallet, users require no Web3 experience at all, yet can confidently access and manage a secure, self-custody, and easy-to-use Web3 wallet. The user experience feels similar to Web2 transfer apps, and users can recover their accounts with a Google account, massively reducing barriers to entry.

As a smart contract wallet app, UniPass provides gasless stablecoin transactions via account abstraction. This allows users to execute transactions seamlessly without directly paying the high gas fees traditionally associated with these transactions. With the UniPass wallet app, users can manage their own self-custody crypto wallet without remembering recovery phrases, thanks to email or social media-based social recovery.

Could you explain the concept of account abstraction and how it plays a pivotal role in Web3 mass adoption?

Essentially, account abstraction develops smart contracts into wallets; users don’t have to understand or manage what happens in the background when they execute transactions. Instead, it’s similar to when users Venmo cash to a friend.

Furthermore, the brilliance of UniPass Wallet lies in its ability to ensure uninterrupted access to your smart contract wallet, even when transitioning to a new device. With UniPass, users can effortlessly regain access to their smart contract wallet on a new device by logging in with their trusted Google Account. This streamlines and eliminates the cumbersome account recovery procedures.

Stablecoins are becoming increasingly important in the crypto space. How do you see them contributing to the broader Web3 adoption?

Account Labs believes stablecoins are the best way to onboard the next billion users into crypto, from cab drivers in Turkey to gig workers in the Philippines. They are key to unlocking crypto mass adoption. By removing the speculative trading aspect of cryptocurrencies, fiat-backed stablecoins eliminate risks associated with price volatility and are easier for non-web3-natives to grasp and trust.

Also Read: Xctuality develops virtual experiential platform, accelerating brands into metaverse”

As traditional financial institutions begin dipping their toes into the crypto finance industry, stablecoins are an inoffensive, neutral ground everyone’s happy to work with. We’re also seeing more non-USD-backed stablecoins coming to market, which is a fantastic development, offering more diversity. I hope to see stablecoins for all fiat currencies one day.

GameFi (Web3 gaming) laid the groundwork in Southeast Asia among young early adopters; next, stablecoins are how we get the ball rolling on true mass adoption. UniPass wallet specifically supports stablecoins on Polygon and massively improves the user experience via account abstraction so that users don’t need any Web3 experience at all.

Can you elaborate on UniPass Wallet’s user experience, especially for those new to Web3 and cryptocurrency?

As a smart contract wallet, UniPass wallet does away with complex 12-word seed phrases to log in. Wallet owners can simply use their Google account to set up and log into their Web3 wallet, with no Web3 familiarity required. This massively lowers the barrier to entry. Plus, users can top up their UniPass wallet directly with cards or Apple Pay. Users can then send stablecoins directly to other Web3 wallets.

Also Read: On-chain data and Web3 security: Insights from industry experts

The UniPass team also spent much time optimising the UI/UX, for example, minimising the clicks required to execute transactions.

What is the significance of UniPass wallet’s ultra-low fees and the reimbursement of three transfers per day per user?

Gas fees are a major barrier to Web3 adoption, as no one likes to pay high fees. If we can’t reduce fees compared to traditional finance options, then we aren’t being innovative enough.

With UniPass, we’re leveraging account abstraction so that users pay transaction fees in stablecoins, rather than any blockchain’s native token, which helps to lower the overall cost. We are also reimbursing the fees for up to three daily transactions per user to encourage users to try out the wallet and discover this next-level financial service.

Grab recently launched a Web3 wallet. What does this mean for the web3 vertical?

Grab’s wallet uses NFTs to power a loyalty programme, which is a great example of how Web3 can align with existing marketing programmes in the Web2 world. It’s a step in the right direction, but users cannot pay for taxis or take-out with their stablecoins through Grab, for example. With UniPass wallet, they can.

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Image Credit: Account Labs

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In early October, Singapore-based edutech company Literatu announced that it is working to customise and integrate its AI-based writing solution to the country’s national online learning portal Student Learning Space (SLS)–accessible by all primary and secondary school teachers and students.

Called Scribo AI, the solution will help provide feedback on student’s writing in style, spelling and grammar. It aims to help teachers better focus on guiding students in the more complex aspects of language construction and develop higher-level language skills, such as creative expression and persuasion.

The solution will be integrated into the Language Feedback Assistant for English (LangFA-EL) tool and go live on SLS in December.

According to Literatu CEO Mark Stanley, Scribo sets itself apart by emphasising teaching and learning writing.

“Scribo recognises that to develop strong writing skills, students require a deeper connection to educators that provides timely feedback and personalised guidance. Research supports the hypothesis that students learning to write in English benefit from personalised guidance, feedback, and strategies for improvement,” he explains in an email to e27.

Stanley says Scribo is available to schools as a complete platform or API, but the Singapore Ministry of Education (MOE) implements Scribo as an API integrated with their SLS platform.

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He highlights the three areas that set Scribo apart from existing tools:

– Engagement in planning and scaffolding: “Scribo engages students in the crucial stage of planning and structuring their writing. It tailors its approach to each student’s zone of proximal development (ZPD), ensuring they are set up for success from the planning phase onward.”

– Comprehensive writing feedback: “Unlike standard GPS systems, Scribo goes beyond grammar and punctuation correction. It offers personalised feedback on vocabulary, sentence structure, tone, argument development, and more. This personalised feedback helps students enhance their writing skills within self-directed learning. Moreover, it informs teachers about recurring issues, enabling them to provide targeted guidance and remediation.”

– Transparent scoring and customisation: “Scribo uniquely scores student work and provides detailed explanations for the scores assigned. The engine can calibrate its assessment based on various factors such as genre, year level, and subject and is responsive to curriculum-specific marking criteria.”

“Furthermore, teachers can use their own rubrics, allowing AI to auto-grade and further personalise feedback. Scribo saves teachers valuable time by quickly identifying areas where students require additional assistance, eliminating the need to read and correct numerous essays manually,” Stanley says.

“This guidance on what students should focus on next is invaluable, as it elevates the mentorship role of teachers, giving them more quality time to provide the most impactful, human-cognitive advice.”

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Writing remains a highly relevant skill. This is how Scribo will help

Stanley explains that the idea for Scribo came from his own personal experience with his sons as they moved through school years.

“‘Stranded brilliance’ is a great term to describe the problem many students face where they can be great at some subjects and not so good at others. In our experience, writing was the stranded subject,” he says.

“Writing English well is the most difficult meta-cognitive skill for students to master. The assembly of clear thinking wrapped in many grammar construct rules needs to be developed with a lot of practice and feedback. Writing remains the most critical 21st-century skill that many people are not proficient in and will avoid, given the opportunity. This hesitation to write is indeed the big attraction of Generative AI and ChatGPT.”

This problem is further exacerbated by the workload teachers must go through, clashing with the pressing need for personalised student support. It eventually led to Literatu developing Scribo.

“A key determiner of the quality of any AI model depends on the quality of the inputs and data used in training and fine-tuning the model. Scribo’s K12 data corpus represents the student writing styles of many Southeast Asia (SEA)-based countries and students, many of which make up a diverse school population in most SEA countries. We work with Singapore MOE to curate and develop new levels of representative data to fine-tune the production models used by MOE,” Stanley explains.

“The ultimate litmus test for Scribo is ‘will it advise students with feedback in a way that an English teacher would?’. The closer the answer gets to a resounding ‘yes’, the more effective the platform is in helping teachers and students. We are getting really close.”

Also Read: 

Writing the future

Literatu is run by a core team of nine engineers and support staff who have been working together for over six years.

The company was bootstrapped until it closed a funding round in June by EduSpaze and Heritas Capital to get the corporate structure in place and be investor-ready as it expands.

It plans to raise a new funding round in early 2024.

Stanley shares that Literatu is looking forward to running pilot projects in the US and Canada and is opening new partnerships with publishers in new market segments in the UK and Latin America.

“We have expanded the level of AI and the practical use of AI in Scribo dramatically this year and will deliver these new features into live production later this year. There is so much more AI can help teachers and students with, and we are committed to delivering significant benefits,” Stanley closes.

“2024 will also see Scribo rolls across the MOE student and teacher base of some 500,000 users and large B2B2C deployments into two big SEA countries.”

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Image Credit: Literatu

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TikTok’s suspension of its online shopping service in Indonesia to comply with the new regulations will unlikely harm the Indonesian e-commerce market as players will adapt accordingly, according to Adrian Li, Founder and Managing Partner of AC Ventures.

New regulations effectively ban e-commerce transactions on social media platforms, preventing users from buying or selling goods on apps like TikTok and Facebook. Social media platforms cannot directly facilitate sales, sell imported items priced under US$100, and act as producers or manufacturers.

Also Read: Indonesia needs more female investors willing to back female founders: Helen Wong of AC Ventures

Foreign goods have recently become more accessible in the country through social media platforms.

The move came shortly after President Joko Widodo called for stricter social media regulations, saying that the influx of such platforms has contributed to declining domestic business sales by flooding the market with foreign imports. Trade Minister Zulkifli Hasan said firms that do not comply with the ban on goods transactions would first be warned and then lose their license to operate in Indonesia if they fail to comply.

“Merchants who set up accounts on TikTok and ship goods from overseas without paying taxes could harm the local economy,” said Li in a podcast with AC Ventures’s Head of Communication Leighton Cosseboom.

While complying with regulations is its priority, TikTok voiced concerns over the impact on six million sellers and nearly seven million affiliate creators currently using TikTok Shop. Indonesia, with a population of more than 270 million, is home to 125 million TikTok users, and it’s the app’s second-largest market in the world.

One possible solution for TikTok to overcome the ban would be establishing a separate sales app. However, Sachin Mittal, Head of TMT Research at DBS Bank, recently warned that because most purchases on TikTok are impulse buys, the need to log into a separate app might lead to a high drop-out rate.

Indonesia’s e-commerce market is currently dominated by names such as Tokopedia, Shopee, and Lazada, but TikTok Shop has expanded rapidly since its launch in 2021 and gained significant market share.

Also Read: ‘Indonesia will soon see a proper credit boom for businesses, consumers’: AC Ventures

Overall, online sales in Indonesia have surged in recent years. The value of e-commerce is expected to increase more than sixfold between 2018 and next year, reaching around US$44 billion, according to the country’s central bank.

Li also questioned whether TikTok had stimulated this growth or simply eroded market share from other players. “My sense is that they probably haven’t significantly accelerated market expansion, and even if they did, it would likely be marginal,” he said, adding that Indonesians tend to adopt social media and internet products relatively quickly. Therefore, some consumers might have shifted to TikTok, affecting the existing e-commerce incumbents.

The regulation also prevents e-commerce marketplaces from manufacturing and producing their own white-labelled goods to compete with merchants who list their products. “I think that is very valid. Can you imagine Shopee or Tokopedia having their own merchants that compete with third-party sellers on their platform and being able to use their superior market competitive information and intelligence?” he asked.

He added that at some point, TikTok likely considered manufacturing white-labelled goods in China and selling them directly in the Indonesian market, giving the platform an advantage over local players. He drew a parallel with Amazon Basics, Amazon’s private-label brand.

Also Read: Wealthtech, insurtech, SaaS fintech are the new hot verticals in Indonesia: AC Ventures report

Leighton agreed that Indonesia should learn from the experiences of the West, such as the case of Amazon, to establish checks against the potential development of a monopoly.

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