This united front in joint cyber-security cooperation among the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is named the ASEAN-Singapore Cyber-security Centre of Excellence (ASCCE) with aims to bolster cyber support among ASEAN members.

An investment of SGD 30 million dollar for the initiative

In shoring up its cyber-defense, Singapore pledged to pump in SGD 30 million dollars over the next five years to fund the ASCCE.

Most of the funding will be used to finance a cyber training centre, a computer emergency response team centre and a cyber think tank as well.

Besides, the members of ASEAN are free to contribute to the budget for the cyber training centre as well.

Others are free to join 

In this united front, the ASCCE is not just limited to ASEAN members, as cyber-attack by nature is borderless and the centre may include other non-ASEAN countries as well.

According to S Iswaran, the Singapore’s minister-in-charge of Cyber-security, developed nations like Australia, Canada, the European Union, New Zealand, South Korea, United Kingdom and the United States showed interest to collaborate with ASSCE on matter of deterrence of cyberattack.

Better to be late than never

It may be argued that Singapore has been slowed to react since its worst cyber-attack that affected its health sector where 1.5 million personal data were breached including the personal records of its Prime Minister.

However, the island nation has been on the move behind the scene to augment its cyber defense. For instance, the Singapore authority had started a bug bounty programme at the end of 2018 to locate system blind spots and benchmark protocols against malicious attacks in its public sector.

The move mirrored a similar initiative taken by the US Department of Defense (DoD) where around 3,000 system vulnerabilities had been identified over a one-year period.

Verdict

In the world of cyber-security, it seemed that the ‘defenders’ are forever playing the catch-up game against the attackers or hackers.

Thus, this put the defenders in disadvantages due to tireless preparation in trying to cover all system vulnerabilities in a meticulous manner. For attackers, the initiative is on their hand and all they need to do is simply focus on one system vulnerabilities for the breach.

So, in this nature of this ‘cat and mouse’ game, it is best to open to fresh ideas from abroad to secure data and prevent future malicious attacks.

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The island-state local media released the shocking news on Friday, 20 Jul 2018, however, the data breach could have taken place much earlier as some cybersecurity experts traced the breach back to the beginning of the month, at 4 July 2018, which coincidently also known as Independent Day or the US National Day.

Hackers target the “soft belly” of healthcare system

Apparently, the hackers first infected the country’s largest group of healthcare institutions, SingHealth’s front desk with a malware between 27 June and 4 July 2018.

This unauthorised access was then detected on 4 July 2018 at one of SingHealth’s IT databases, then the system administrators undertaken a series of counter-measures to thwart the cyber-attack. According to local media, no further data theft were recorded after 4 July 2018 and later SingHealth made a police report on the 12 July 2018 upon confirming the cyber attack on its system.

It was noteworthy that the hackers had chosen a less secured route in attacking the country’s healthcare system networks rather than highly protected site such as government websites or defence departments.

A organised state Cyber-Attack or political shaming move?

The prized target of the cyber-attack seemed bend on in drawing out the medical information of the country’s top politicians, namely Singapore’s Prime Minister, Lee Hsien Loong and Emeritus Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong.

Thus, the city-state’s authority viewed the cyberattack on the healthcare system as “deliberate, targeted and well-planned” cyberattack, bearing some trademark of state-sponsored hacking. 

For instance, the hacker continued its unauthorised access to the healthcare system even though its action had been detected, showing the confidence, resourcefulness and the capability of the hacker to get away unscathed.

If the cyber-attack is indeed a state-sponsored one, the local media pointed out that there is only a few countries of the world that are capable of such attacks.

Singapore: the Gibraltar of the East for cyber-security

As the investigation of the breaches continued to unfold, one thing is certain that the famed Smart Nation, or the pet project taken by Singapore had been cracked despite boosting a formidable Cyber Security Agency (CSA), touted as one of the bests in the region.

Thus, the aftermath of the data breach may have fallen short of its goals – be its political agendas or simply financial motives of selling confidential patients’ data. However, the attack had afflicted a bigger blow to the country’s aspiration in cyber-space domination.

As the saying goes, ‘what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’, the Hackwarenews team truly hoped the island-nation will bounce from this setback and lived up to its name of ‘Gibraltar of the East’ in cyber-security.

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