Singapore to open cyber security centre to boost Asean's security

With cyber attacks mounting, Singapore is expanding its programme to deepen Asean's cyber capabilities and enhance the region's ability to respond to emerging global cyberthreats.

Announcing this yesterday at the opening of the third annual Singapore International Cyber Week, Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean said the Republic will set up an Asean-Singapore Cybersecurity Centre of Excellence to strengthen Asean members' cyber strategy development, legislation and research capabilities.

The centre will expand on the existing Asean Cyber Capacity Programme, a $10 million investment that Singapore made in 2016 to build cyber capabilities for officials from Asean member states.

It will also train national Computer Emergency Response Teams (Certs) in the region, and promote Cert-to-Cert open-source information sharing.

"Cyberthreats are global threats. No country can tackle these emerging cyberthreats on its own.

"We need to work together to strengthen our collective resilience against such threats," said Mr Teo, who is also the Coordinating Minister for National Security.

Singapore

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At the national level, Mr Teo said that Singapore is continuing to strengthen its cyber security capabilities.

Besides introducing a cyber security law, it has accelerated efforts to build up the Cyber Security Agency of Singapore (CSA) and has worked closely with critical information infrastructure owners to strengthen their cyber defences.

To help identify the Government's blind spots and benchmark its defences against skilled global hackers, a Government Bug Bounty Programme will be launched at the end of this year.

Local and international ethical computer hackers and experts will be invited to test selected, Internet-facing government systems and identify vulnerabilities.

This week, the CSA will put out an industry call for innovation, which will see cyber security companies submitting proposals to match the cyber needs of five large-scale organisations, namely Ascendas-Singbridge Group, PacificLight Power, Singapore LNG Corporation, Singapore Press Holdings and SMRT Corporation.

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