Chitchat Smart Nation, IDA - laughing stock of the World over Internet Closure

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An honorable member of the Coffee Shop Has Just Posted the Following:

Truly a bunch of clowns. Surely they must know that it clearly signals their lack of confidence in protecting their network. Read the highly defensive statements. How can this be called a "calibrated" approach. There is nothing to calibrate - its is going to be totally detached, there is no link, bridge etc. This does not qualify even as a risk based approach. No need to monitor, one can even argue there is no need for a firewall.

As I said before, people in the civil service initially thought it was a hoax. Maybe it best to hand this over to the Indian Foreign talent who are all over the foreign banks.

Our PM's son is in IDA and I am not sure how it reflects on him.

Even Mr Miyagi and Mr Brown have taken pot shots of these clowns. Read the last para. I wonder our Minister in charge of the Smart Nation programme must be smarting over this or is it his idea.


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Singapore Government ‘definitely has not given up’ on cybersecurity: IDA
Mr Chai Chin Loon, Director of Cyber Security Group at IDA, says the move to separate Web access for public sector employees is a “calibrated approach” that aims to close off one big source of cyberattacks - the Internet.

By Kevin Kwang
Posted 09 Jun 2016 13:10 Updated 09 Jun 2016 14:01

SINGAPORE: The Singapore Government “definitely has not given up” on securing its IT infrastructure from cyberattacks, said Mr Chai Chin Loon, Director of Cyber Security Group at the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA), on Thursday (Jan 9).

In fact, the Government is “taking a leap forward” to close off one of the bigger sources of online attacks afflicting governments today - the Internet, explained Mr Chai in an interview with Channel NewsAsia.

His comments follow news that emerged on Wednesday stating that Internet access for civil servants will be hived off from their work computers to dedicated Web-enabled PCs. Officers would still be able to surf the Internet on separate computers or mobile devices - either belonging to the individual or provided by their organisations, according to an IDA circular sent to these employees.

“I would argue that we are not taking a step backward, but adopting a balanced approach” in addressing the increasingly risky online landscape, Mr Chai said.

Elaborating, he said that by practising hardware-based access management, which helps determine the amount of Web access and on which devices, there is a “higher wall” for potential cybercriminals to step through in order to enter Government’s IT infrastructure and steal away important citizens’ data.

The IDA cybersecurity chief said while there are software offerings that offer access management, these are riskier options. “There are inherent weaknesses because of the complexity of the code; I’ve yet to see a piece of software that has no bugs in it,” he explained.

WHY NOW?

Mr Chai said the decision to hive off Internet access for civil servants was taken for a number of reasons: One is that the threat level has reached the point for “drastic actions”.

He cited the example of the 2015 breach of the US Office of Personnel Management, which resulted in the theft of Social Security numbers and other information about current and former government workers, applicants, contractors and spouses of those who underwent background checks for security clearance. The hack affected 22.1 million people, up from the initial 4.2 million when the breach was first reported.

He added that governments are constantly attacked, and for Singapore, “billions of attacks” are detected each year. Furthermore, how-to guides and sophisticated tools to commit hacks are increasingly made available online, which further exacerbates the challenge to secure one’s IT infrastructure.

“These are authoritative data, personal data that were stolen,” said Mr Chai, adding that if this happened in Singapore, “I don’t think we can survive it”.

Secondly, it is a question of whether there are alternatives for Web surfing for civil servants. Mr Chai said with the proliferation of high-speed Internet and mobile devices, people are no longer constrained by dedicated, Web-enabled PCs. He added that for him, it is his smartphone that acts as his main Web surfing tool.

Mr Chai also took the opportunity to address the impact of the move on citizens, saying they will be “minimally impacted”. “The main impact will be on public servants and their workflow,” he added.

The news of the transition towards separating Internet access for public servants whipped up a frenzy online on Wednesday, with some of the public questioning the decision and wondering how such a move will affect e-Government services and its overall Smart Nation vision.

Prominent online personalities such as Mr Miyagi tweeted: "We're with you, civil servants of Singapore. Oh wait, you have no internet to read this tweet", while mrbrown made fun of the news with a picture of a lady searching the library for information and tweeted: "Our civil servants will have the Internet cut off from their computers next year. Because we Smart Nation."


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