New research from Tanium finds that unmanaged and unmonitored endpoints are costing Southeast Asian organisations up to US$1 million, as regional governments move to tighten accountability for critical infrastructure security.

The State of Endpoint Management in ASEAN 2026 report, which surveyed 333 IT and security leaders across Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia and the Philippines, found that 62% of organisations experienced operational disruption from endpoint issues, driving downtime, data exposure and revenue loss. Financial losses from endpoint incidents exceeded US$1 million for some organisations, with 46% losing more than US$100,000 and 17% reporting losses above US$500,000.

A gap between confidence and control

The data points to a disconnect between perceived and actual visibility: while 59% of respondents described themselves as “very confident” in tracking devices, 43% admitted more than 10% of their endpoints are unknown, unmanaged or non-compliant, and 13% reported over 30% falling into that category. Only 29% of organisations can detect a critical issue within minutes, while 55% take hours to identify a single threat indicator.

“Geopolitical conflict has gone digital, while AI is accelerating both innovation and attacks. The devices connecting it all are increasingly outside the visibility of the teams responsible for protecting them,” said Satyen Desai, RVP, ASEAN, Tanium. “The misconception between confidence and actual control is real, it is widening, and it is expensive.”

Patching and compliance lag behind

Patching remains a weak point: only 16% of organisations can address critical vulnerabilities across most of their systems within 24 hours, and 60% still rely on partially automated processes. Half of ASEAN organisations face quarterly IT asset audits, yet only half can prepare audit-ready data in under a week. The report notes that as Singapore’s Cyber Security Act tightens compliance expectations, operators still relying on manual audit preparation risk falling behind the regulatory curve — a concern amplified by Singapore’s recent move to hold senior management of critical information infrastructure (CII) owners directly accountable for cyber-resilience.

The report found 79% of respondents plan to invest in new security solutions within the next 12 months, with fragmentation across disconnected tools, rather than insufficient budget, cited as the primary frustration. Tanium’s full findings and recommendations are available on its website.