Singapore Cyber Security
SINGAPORE CYBER UPDATES Highlights from the Singapore International Cyber Week 2016 (10th Oct 2016 – 12th Oct 2016, SunTec Singapore International Convention & Exhibition Centre), and the Cloud Expo Security 2016 (12th Oct -13th Oct 2016, Marina Bay Sands Expo and Convention Centre). When hackers broke into the computers of Bangladesh’s Central Bank in February of this year and committed one of the largest cyber heists ever in which $951million fake payments were ordered, $81million was already cleared and processed by the time the fraud was discovered. Details of the techniques and methods believed to be linked to the heist revealed by government and private investigation teams raised widespread concerns that these tools and techniques used may allow the same, if not other sophisticated international criminal syndicates to strike again. One consolation is that the losses could have been 10 times worse, with the attackers making off with nearly $1billion had all the fraudulent transactions been cleared. Cyber attacks such as the Bangladesh heist and the Carbanak attacks which targeted the ATMs and transaction systems take advantage of vulnerabilities of the global financial processing networks to successfully steal and move millions of dollars across borders.
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The significance of these attacks lie in their large-scale haul and sophisticated coordination: by adopting techniques which targeted different systems, processes, departments and countries; and the significant planning involved in deleting evidence of their activities and covering cyber tracks to remain undetected. Besides banks, transportation networks, hospitals and other essential services have also been subject to wide ranging cyber infiltrations, where the attackers seek to extract data and monetize the stolen data, compromise critical infrastructure, manipulate and influence public opinion. Cyber attacks are growing more sophisticated, frequent and impactful. According to the 2016 Cyberthreat Defense Report, 76 percent of responding organizations were affected by a successful cyberattack in 2015 – up from 70 percent in 2014 and 62 percent in 2013. Left unchecked, these attacks can create a hostile cyberspace, making it difficult to trust and perform basic online transactions and interactions.
For Singapore, setting out a Smart Nation vision – which centers on harnessing the power of technology – will make the nation more productive, but also at the same time pose significant challenges, as the increasing connectedness means a corresponding elevation of potential cybersecurity threats. The good news is that the Singapore Government has consistently taken cyberthreats seriously.