Arabian Post Staff -Dubai Iran said on Monday it wanted a durable end to the war with the United States and Israel rather than a temporary truce, rejecting pressure to reopen the Strait of Hormuz on Washington’s timetable as President Donald Trump warned the country could be “taken out” if it failed to meet his Tuesday night deadline for a deal. Tehran’s stance underscored how far apart […]
Security leaders are being told to treat “vibe coding” as a governance issue, not merely a productivity trend, as AI assistants move deeper into software development and expose organisations to flaws ranging from insecure dependencies to credential leakage and command injection. Guidance from standards bodies and security groups now points towards a simple principle: code produced with AI should be handled as untrusted until it has passed […]
KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA – Media OutReach Newswire – 7 April 2026 – Innovation, technology and young entrepreneurs continue to power growth among Malaysian small business, but this has yet to translate into sustained improvements in business performance, according to CPA Australia’s Asia-Pacific Small Business Survey findings.
While half of Malaysian small businesses report improved profitability from their technology investments over the past two years, the proportion generating more than 10 per cent of revenue from online sales declined from 74 per cent in 2024 to 62 per cent in 2025.
Digital payment usage has also declined in 2025 with 74 per cent of small businesses receiving more than 10 per cent of their sales through digital payment platforms such as GrabPay, Touch ‘n Go and Boost, compared to 78 per cent in 2024.
Priya Terumalay, CPA Australia’s Regional Head for Southeast Asia, said while government initiatives have helped support technology adoption, these efforts have yet to drive significant uptake of deeper productivity-enhancing technologies, such as artificial intelligence, process automation, data analytics and systems integration.
“Technology investment remains concentrated in computer hardware and customer-facing functions like mobile apps and payments, while structural constraints continue to limit more transformative approaches,” Priya said.
“With cost pressures remaining a persistent challenge compressing margins, policy priorities should focus on addressing structural constraints such as re-orienting digital support towards automation, systems integration, and data use along with support for productivity-enhancing responses rather than short-term relief.”
Businesses making technology investments must include adequate protection measures to minimise cyber risk exposure as 35 per cent of small businesses lost time or money due to a cyber-attack in 2025.
Only 39 per cent reviewed their cybersecurity protections over a six-month period, the second lowest result among the 11 markets surveyed.
Despite the challenges, business sentiment on the Malaysian economy remains positive with 75 percent of small businesses expecting the economy to grow in 2026.
A strong 77 per cent also anticipate business growth this year, although improved access to effective finance, especially for investment will be important to enable deeper digital transformation and build resilience.
“This is particularly crucial for outward-oriented small businesses navigating global supply chain pressures and trade policy uncertainty that could weigh on growth, especially firms integrated into regional supply chains.” Priya said.
About the survey
CPA Australia’s 17th annual Asia-Pacific Small Business Survey was conducted among small business owners/senior managers during November and December 2025 to identify the characteristics of successful small businesses across the region. The findings for the survey come from 4,166 small businesses in 11 markets. From the commencement of the survey in 2009, we have surveyed over 50,000 small businesses across the region. These include Australia, Mainland China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan and Vietnam.
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CPA Australia is one of the world’s largest professional accounting bodies, with more than 175,000 members in over 100 countries and regions, including more than 21,000 members in Southeast Asia. As we mark our 140th anniversary, we also celebrate 70 years of presence in Malaysia. With offices in Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and Vietnam, we are the largest Australian accounting body in the region providing education, training, technical support and advocacy. CPA Australia provides thought leadership on issues affecting the accounting profession and the public interest. We engage with governments, regulators and industries to advocate policies that stimulate sustainable economic growth and have positive business and public outcomes. A CPA is a Certified Practising Accountant. More at cpaaustralia.com.au
Singapore’s parliament is set to turn its attention on Tuesday to the economic and security consequences of the war involving Iran, with lawmakers filing 62 questions and three ministers due to deliver statements on how the conflict could affect energy supplies, inflation, transport costs and broader national resilience. The questions, lodged by 32 members from both the ruling People’s Action Party and the opposition, underline growing concern in the trade-dependent city-state over the fallout from turmoil in the Middle East.
The scale of parliamentary scrutiny is notable even by Singapore’s standards. According to the order paper for the 7 April sitting, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Trade and Industry Gan Kim Yong, Coordinating Minister for National Security K. Shanmugam, and Acting Transport Minister and Senior Minister of State for Finance Jeffrey Siow are scheduled to address the chamber. The questions range from the immediate effect of higher oil and gas prices to the security of liquefied natural gas supplies and the government’s plans to shield households and businesses from a prolonged external shock.
At the centre of concern is Singapore’s dependence on imported energy and its exposure to global shipping routes. The order paper shows MPs asking whether damage to Qatar’s Ras Laffan LNG facilities could materially affect short- and medium-term supply, whether alternative procurement arrangements would be enough to offset any shortfall, and whether disruption in the Middle East might accelerate efforts to diversify the energy mix, including greater investment in alternatives such as nuclear power. That line of questioning reflects a deeper vulnerability: Singapore generates most of its electricity from natural gas and has little room to escape sudden swings in international fuel markets.
Cost pressures are another major theme. Lawmakers have asked how rising fuel and electricity prices may feed through to household expenditure, transport operators and the wider cost of living. For a government already balancing inflation management with fiscal prudence, the debate offers an opportunity to show whether existing buffers are sufficient or whether targeted support may be needed if the conflict persists. Prime Minister Lawrence Wong, in a video message on 2 April, had already warned Singaporeans that instability in the Middle East could affect the economy through higher energy prices, supply chain disruption and weaker global confidence, signalling that the government was preparing the public for a potentially difficult external environment.
Singapore’s predicament is shaped by geography as much as policy. The republic sits far from the conflict zone, yet its economy is tied tightly to global trade, imported food and imported fuel. Any threat to Gulf energy production or maritime passage through strategic chokepoints can ripple quickly into Asian benchmark prices, freight costs and business sentiment. Questions filed for parliament suggest MPs are not only concerned about immediate supply disruption, but also about second-round effects on manufacturers, logistics firms, electricity generation and consumers already sensitive to living costs.
The breadth of the questions also points to a broader political calculation. Singapore’s leaders have long framed resilience as a whole-of-government and whole-of-society effort, particularly when external shocks threaten domestic stability. The debate now unfolding in parliament is likely to test how far that framework can stretch in the face of a conflict whose trajectory remains uncertain. Opposition members, including Workers’ Party figures, have pressed for details on fuel reserves, assistance for workers dependent on transport and the likely effect on household budgets, while ruling-party MPs have focused heavily on energy security, diversification and inflation spillovers.
Beyond energy, the parliamentary discussion may widen into questions of diplomacy, national security and public confidence. K. Shanmugam’s planned statement suggests the government sees the crisis as more than a commodity shock. Singapore has consistently sought to position itself as stable, rules-based and open to commerce, which means geopolitical conflict in a key producing region carries implications not only for prices but also for investor confidence and regional security calculations. Ministers will face pressure to reassure the public that contingency planning is in place, even as they acknowledge that a small open economy cannot fully insulate itself from a major war-driven disruption.
LinkedIn is facing mounting privacy questions after an investigation branded “BrowserGate” alleged the Microsoft-owned professional network scans thousands of browser extensions and gathers detailed device information from visitors without clear consent, raising fresh scrutiny over how large platforms monitor users and enforce their rules. Independent testing by a cybersecurity news outlet said it confirmed that LinkedIn’s site loads code able to detect more than 6,000 extensions in […]
A Python package presented as a privacy-first shortcut to AI models has been unmasked as a supply-chain threat that quietly captures user prompts, leans on a private university service without authorisation and repurposes proprietary Claude material to make the deception look convincing. Security researchers said the package, hermes-px, was uploaded to PyPI as a supposed “Secure AI Inference Proxy” offering OpenAI-compatible access over Tor and claiming users […]
Google has expanded Chrome’s native lazy-loading system to cover audio and video elements, extending a browser feature once centred on images and iframes into richer media formats that often consume far more data and trigger earlier connections to outside servers. The change allows developers to use the loading=”lazy” attribute on ` and so that files outside the visible viewport can be deferred until a user is closer […]
A malware campaign targeting organisations in South Korea is using weaponised Windows shortcut files and GitHub’s infrastructure to slip past standard network defences, according to threat researchers who say the operation relies on native Windows tools, hidden scripts and trusted web traffic to keep a low profile. Technical analysis published over the past few days shows the attackers embedding or decoding malicious PowerShell from LNK files, then […]
That message reflects a wider shift in digital assets. After years dominated by token launches, trading cycles and proof-of-concept experiments, the emphasis across much of the industry has moved towards tokenised securities, cross-border settlement, digital identity, compliant custody and blockchain rails for mainstream financial institutions. Reuters has reported that major market infrastructure players are developing tokenised securities platforms, while analysts have projected strong growth in tokenised real-world assets, even as sceptics warn that much of the promise still sits in early-stage back-office applications rather than broad public adoption.
For Indonesia, that debate carries particular weight because the country has spent the past two years reshaping supervision of digital assets. Regulatory oversight of crypto assets and other digital financial assets was formally transferred from commodity futures regulator Bappebti to the Financial Services Authority, or OJK, under the wider financial sector reform framework. That has tightened the link between blockchain activity and mainstream finance, while signalling that the authorities want a more structured regime around licensing, compliance and consumer safeguards.
OJK’s own public updates show that digital financial assets and crypto supervision now sit within a broader integrity and resilience agenda for the financial system, alongside sandbox oversight and enforcement. That regulatory direction matters for a conference such as Indonesia Blockchain Week because institutional investors, banks and enterprises are less likely to engage seriously with Web3 infrastructure unless licensing, governance and disclosure standards are clearer than they were during the sector’s earlier growth phase.
Another strand of the Indonesian story is the state’s interest in sovereign digital infrastructure. Bank Indonesia’s Project Garuda, the central bank’s digital rupiah initiative, has been presented as part of a broader effort to safeguard monetary sovereignty in the digital era. Even though a retail or wholesale digital rupiah remains under development rather than fully launched, the project has become one of the clearest signs that distributed ledger technology is being examined not just by crypto-native firms but by the institutions that underpin payments and currency systems.
That backdrop helps explain why conference organisers are leaning into the language of “impact”. Across Asia, the conversation has become more institutional and more policy-aware. Reuters reported last year that wealthy Asian investors were increasing crypto exposure, while other reporting this year has shown how tokenisation is moving closer to exchanges and regulated financial venues. At the same time, risks remain central to the story: the IMF warned this month that tokenised finance could amplify market stress if regulatory guardrails and crisis-response mechanisms do not keep pace with technology.
That balance between promise and caution is likely to define the Jakarta event. Proponents of tokenisation argue that blockchain-based representations of bonds, funds, property interests and other assets can reduce settlement delays, widen market access and make ownership more divisible. Critics counter that many of these benefits are still more theoretical than proven at scale, and that fragmented standards, legal uncertainty and cybersecurity risks continue to hold the sector back. Reuters’ explainer on tokenisation captured that divide by noting both the liquidity and access arguments advanced by supporters and the unresolved questions over how fast real adoption will follow.
Indonesia Blockchain Week itself appears keen to place the country at the centre of that regional conversation. Organiser material describes the event as a gateway between local innovation and global capital, policy and technology networks. Yet the official website also shows some transitional messaging, with parts of the site still carrying 2025 branding even as other official channels and partner announcements point to the August 2026 summit. That inconsistency does not alter the announced dates, but it does suggest organisers are still in the process of consolidating the event’s next edition across platforms.
Anthropic’s Claude Code has come under fresh scrutiny after researchers disclosed a flaw that can neutralise user-set deny rules when a shell command is padded with a long chain of harmless subcommands, raising concerns that a safety feature marketed as a hard stop may fail in exactly the kind of hostile conditions it is meant to resist. The issue centres on Claude Code’s permission system, which lets […]
Arabian Post Staff -Dubai ADNOC Gas said its domestic supply chain remains intact after damage at part of the Habshan complex on April 3, with gas demand inside the UAE being met through other facilities and no disruption to customer supply. The company told the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange that the affected area had been isolated and that a full assessment of damage to the Habshan train […]
Singapore’s SMEs account for 99% of all enterprises and employ nearly 70% of the local workforce, yet many remain chronically underserved in enterprise-grade cybersecurity. Email continues to be one of the most exploited attack vectors, with threat actors increasingly targeting resource-constrained businesses that lack the dedicated IT security teams of larger organisations. MyRepublic Email Guard is designed to close this protection gap, delivering a simple, effective, and locally supported solution that levels the playing field for SMEs without adding operational complexity.
Powered by Check Point, advanced email threat protection technology, MyRepublic Email Guard helps businesses detect and block malicious emails before they reach users’ inboxes. The solution is designed to support businesses using popular email platforms such as Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace, giving customers an additional layer of protection against modern threats.
“Singapore’s SMEs are the heartbeat of our economy, and protecting them from cyber threats is not just a business imperative. It is a national one,” said Lawrence Chan, Managing Director & Chief AI Officer, MyRepublic. “Far too many local businesses remain exposed simply because they cannot access or afford the cybersecurity tools available to larger enterprises. With MyRepublic Email Guard, we are changing that. We bring enterprise-grade protection to businesses that have long been underserved, backed by the local expertise and support they deserve.”
MyRepublic Email Guard combines advanced security technology with managed service support, allowing businesses to benefit from a more streamlined approach to email protection. The service is positioned as an all-in-one offering that includes deployment, ongoing management, and local support, helping customers reduce the burden on internal teams while improving cyber resilience.
“Enterprise-grade cybersecurity has been out of reach for the SMEs that need it most. That has to change,” said Imran Nazi, Head of ICT, MyRepublic. “MyRepublic Email Guard is built specifically for Singapore’s SMEs, where it is designed to be affordable, easy to adopt, and supported by a team that understands the local business environment. We want every SME in Singapore to have access to the same level of protection that large enterprises take for granted, because a safer SME ecosystem means a stronger Singapore.”
The launch of MyRepublic Email Guard marks a significant step in MyRepublic’s commitment to building a more cyber-resilient Singapore. Aligned with national efforts to strengthen digital security across all business segments, MyRepublic is focused on ensuring that SMEs, often the most targeted yet least protected segment, are equipped to defend themselves. By combining world-class technology from Check Point with localised managed service delivery, MyRepublic is bridging the cybersecurity gap for businesses that have historically been underserved.
MyRepublic Email Guard is now available for businesses in Singapore.
Hashtag: #MyRepublic #EmailSecurity #CyberSecurity #SMEs #DigitalSecurity #ManagedServices #EmailGuard
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MyRepublic is a telecommunications and ICT services provider committed to delivering innovative digital solutions for consumers and businesses. In addition to connectivity services, MyRepublic supports businesses with a growing portfolio of ICT solutions, including cloud, cybersecurity, managed services, and digital enablement offerings.
Google DeepMind has warned that autonomous AI agents face a widening security risk from malicious web content designed not for humans, but for machines that browse, interpret and act online. The threat, described by researchers as “AI Agent Traps”, centres on adversarial web pages and digital resources crafted to mislead, hijack or exploit AI systems as they move beyond chatbot functions into tasks such as handling email, […]
Greenlogue/AP Solar power capacity across the Gulf Cooperation Council has expanded at an exceptional rate, with a new GCC-Stat report showing average annual growth of 88.1 per cent between 2013 and 2024, underscoring how one of the world’s leading hydrocarbon-producing regions is accelerating investment in cleaner energy while also strengthening climate resilience measures. The same report said electricity generated from solar energy climbed from 0.13 thousand gigawatt-hours […]
While High-Net-Worth Individuals have long relied on family offices, the rapidly growing mass-affluent market remains critically underserved due to manual, fragmented, and prohibitive legacy planning processes. Financial advisors—the primary relationship holders—often lack the modern tools required to execute legacy plans, leading to fragmented advice where investment and insurance strategies are disconnected.
The newly released whitepaper outlines how TrustPal bridges this gap through a secure, end-to-end platform that transforms AI from a disruptive threat into a powerful digital co-pilot.
The AI Paraplanner: A Workflow-Bound Digital Co-Pilot
Unlike autonomous “robo-advisors,” TrustPal’s AI Paraplanner operates as a strictly regulated assistive layer” It is built to instantly ingest complex client data sets, cross-reference current assets against future objectives, and identify critical legacy gaps.
By processing these heavy analytical workloads instantly, the AI Paraplanner drafts tailored recommendation narratives, allowing financial advisors to shift their focus from administrative data-crunching to what truly matters: relationship building and strategic counsel.
Regulated-by-Design: The Human-in-the-Loop Safeguard
“With the AI Paraplanner, we are proving that efficiency and compliance can coexist. Our technology does the heavy analytical lifting, but the Licensed Advisor remains the sole decision-maker. We are scaling the advisor’s impact, not automating away their empathy” said Lee Tuck Wai, Managing Director of TrustPal.
To guarantee absolute security, the AI Paraplanner is built with strict safety boundaries. The system is explicitly blocked from executing any actions on its own. Furthermore, it never invents or guesses solutions; it can only recommend strategies that exist within TrustPal’s approved logic library. Every insight is generated purely in a draft state , requiring mandatory review and approval by the advisor through a strict human gate before it can be presented to the client.
Empowering the Future of Advisory
TrustPal’s whitepaper serves as a vital blueprint for financial institutions, SME owners, and independent advisors seeking to navigate the future of legacy planning. The report provides an exclusive, in-depth look at the internal mechanics of the AI Paraplanner, including its 5-step validation gate and data ingestion engine.
Curious about how the AI Paraplanner accelerates financial analysis without crossing the line into automated advice? Discover the exact mechanisms, including the 5-step validation gate and data ingestion engine.
Read the Executive Summary and download the full whitepaper here: https://www.trustpal.co/whitepaper
Hashtag: #TrustPal #AIParaplanner #AdvisoryTech #LegacyPlanning #FinancialPlanning
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Simplyfi TrustPal is a pioneering FinTech OS provider dedicated to transforming the landscape of financial and legacy management. Our core mission is to provide financial advisory firms and professional consultants with cutting-edge, automated solutions for Estate Planning and Trust setup. By seamlessly automating complex workflows, TrustPal enables partners to achieve unprecedented levels of efficiency, scale their service offerings, and deliver a superior, reliable customer experience in the sensitive area of intergenerational financial transfer.
If you’d like to explore how TrustPal can support your firm’s roadmap or experience a closer walkthrough, you can book a 1-to-1 demo here: Book a Demo.
Let’s connect with us for updates and collaboration:
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Arabian Post Staff -Dubai Huawei has raised its research spending to one of the heaviest levels in the global technology industry, saying it invested CNY192.3 billion in 2025, or roughly $27.8 billion, equal to 21.8% of annual revenue. The figure came with group revenue of CNY880.9 billion and net profit of CNY68 billion, underlining how the Shenzhen-based company is continuing to prioritise long-term technology development even as […]
Telegram has rolled out a broad product update that adds a private AI writing tool, a major expansion of polling functions, support for Live Photos and Motion Photos, and a new system that lets bots create and manage other bots, in a move that sharpens the platform’s push into AI-assisted messaging and developer automation. The update was announced on March 31, 2026, with related bot-management changes […]
Drift Protocol has said the theft of about $270 million to $286 million from its platform was the result of a six-month operation by North Korea-linked actors who built trust slowly, posed as a legitimate trading firm and used face-to-face meetings, capital deposits and carefully timed social engineering to prepare the strike. The Solana-based exchange’s account adds a new layer to an attack that security researchers had […]
Google has disclosed a coordinated takedown of UNC2814, a suspected China-linked cyber-espionage group, after investigators tied it to intrusions at 53 organisations in 42 countries, with telecommunications providers and government bodies forming the core of the victim set. The campaign centred on a custom backdoor called GRIDTIDE, which used Google Sheets as a covert command-and-control channel, allowing malicious traffic to blend with ordinary cloud activity rather than […]
Solana’s effort to prepare for a future quantum-computing threat is exposing a basic tension for high-speed blockchains: the safer the signature system becomes, the heavier and slower it is likely to be. That trade-off has moved into sharper focus as Bitcoin developers debate draft quantum-safe address proposals, Ethereum’s post-quantum team lays out a multi-year migration plan, and new research from Google and outside experts brings forward the […]
Artificial intelligence is lowering the cost of cyberattacks across the digital-asset industry and forcing crypto firms to rethink how they protect users, wallets and transaction systems, according to Ledger chief technology officer Charles Guillemet, whose warning lands as the sector grapples with a fresh cycle of major breaches and more sophisticated fraud. Guillemet said AI is making hacks “cheaper and faster”, amplifying a security problem that has […]
Italy has introduced temporary jet fuel limits at four airports as supply strains tied to the Middle East conflict begin to hit European aviation, raising the prospect of operational disruption just as airlines prepare for heavier spring and summer traffic. Notices to airmen issued for Bologna, Milan Linate, Venice and Treviso said Jet A1 availability from Air BP Italia was limited, with restrictions running between April 2 […]
Federal agents in the United States have arrested a woman identified by Washington as the niece of slain Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani, along with her daughter, after Secretary of State Marco Rubio revoked their lawful permanent resident status, according to statements issued on April 4. The pair are now in the custody of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, marking the latest step in a wider campaign against […]
Cash briefly replaced cards and QR payments across parts of Russia on April 3 after a widespread disruption hit banking and payment services, an outage that Telegram founder Pavel Durov said was triggered by Moscow’s efforts to block virtual private networks as part of a broader clampdown on online communications. The disruption affected shoppers, commuters and businesses, and has sharpened scrutiny of how far the Kremlin’s drive […]
