Wai Kit Cheah in command and control of interview on DDoS attacks

Singapore's fast internet and cloud hub status has a dark side: it is increasingly the place from which malicious DDoS attacks are carried out.

So says our nominee for Best Broadcast Interview in the Hong Bao Media Savvy Awards 2019, Wai Kit Cheah.

As Director, Security Product Management, Asia Pacific of CenturyLink, he stopped by the Money FM 89.3 studio to tell listeners about the threat of Distributed-Denial-of Service attacks in the age of Internet of Things (IoT) and 5G.

Cheah pulled off an all-round good performance, which is why we nominated him for the Hong Bao Media Savvy Awards 2019.

Scroll down to see my six reasons for nominating him:

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The Hong Bao Media Savvy Awards 2019 resumes with our second round of nominations. At the same time, Hong Bao Media has launched the awards in Malaysia and fine-tuned the categories to:

Best Broadcast Interview, in association with Meltwater
Best Online Interview, in association with Shootsta
Best Conference Presentation, in association with Dianomi
Best Live Webcast, in association with The Streaming Company

We launched the Hong Bao Media Savvy Awards to recognise senior local leaders for their communications skills, and to showcase authentic and credible home-grown communicators.

These are shining examples for other local business leaders, and to build a culture of excellence in communication, to maximise the potential of Asian companies in the Asian Century.

Each week until November 30, 2019, we are shortlisting a local corporate figure who has demonstrated excellence in a media appearance for the Hong Bao Media Savvy Awards 2019.

Click on the link below to enter yourself or another Senior Business Leader.

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Here are six observations on his performance:

Authentic – He was bang on-message from the get-go, but he didn't sound salesy. In fact, throughout the interview he was presented with several opportunities to get a commercial message in. The presenters even asked him "What is CenturyLink's role in protecting the internet and providing greater threat visibility?". What a free kick! He did promote his company and threat report service, but he didn't go overboard with the sales pitch.
Examples – Cheah gave some concrete examples to bring this abstract topic to life. He explained the risk posed by ubiquitous closed-circuit TV systems many HDB dwellers are installing to monitor their homes. Whether referring to "an army of slaves" being controlled by a malicious server, finding a malicious device in a meeting room, or discovering that a data breach was due to an air conditioning vendor being compromised, Cheah found visual ways to illustrate his points.
Clear – Despite the complexity of the topic and a risk that the interview could have descended into a very technical discussion, he simplified most jargon and explained them in layman's terms.
Flagging – Cheah flagged his points several times during the interview. Can you spot "Increase in C2", "Increase in DNS attacks", and "DDoS attacks are evolving"? Or where he dot-pointed "Security expertise", "Visibility into risk", and "Simplify security"?
Numbers – Cheah said there was a 250% increase in the number of servers that maliciously use others to attack sites. This made the interview more urgent and important.
Patient – The interviewers kept interrupting him. This was annoying enough for the listener, but Cheah kept his cool and patiently came back to his point.