Called the Cyber Security Agency (CSA), the agency will be operational from 01 April 2015. It will bring together existing agencies under the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) and the Infocomm Development Authority (IDA) to lead the cyber security master plan, the building and design of relevant systems, and to monitor and respond to cyber threats.
The CSA replaces the Singapore Infocomm Technology Security Authority (SITSA) which was set up on 1 Oct 2009 to safeguard Singapore against infocomm technology (IT) security threats.
SITSA has been monitoring 10 sectors: Government, infocomms energy (power), land transport, maritime, civil aviation, water, security and emergency, health, banking and finance; and will be subsumed into the CSA, together with the Singapore Computer Emergency Response Team, which deals with cyber security bodies outside Singapore.
These include strategy and policy development, cyber security operations, industry development and outreach. It will also work closely with the private sector to develop Singapore’s cyber security eco-system.
Dr Yaacob Ibrahim, Minister for Communications and Information, will be appointed as the Minister-in-charge of Cyber Security.
David Koh, Deputy Secretary (Technology) at the Ministry of Defence (MINDEF), has been appointed as the Chief Executive (Designate) of the CSA on 1 January 2015, and as Chief Executive, CSA from 1 April 2015.
Koh will assume his CSA and MINDEF appointments concurrently.
The efforts by the Singapore Government come in the wake of a spate of cyberattacks in the last couple of years that targeted government websites. About 1,560 SingPass accounts were illegally accessed in June last year and, in September, details of more than 300,000 customers of karaoke chain KBox were leaked by hackers. In 2013, a string of hacking incidents on Singapore government websites, including that of the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO).
netizens left a footprint.