GEIS-新闻详情

Cyber defenders fend off simulated attacks against cellular, gas and airport systems

2023-11-25 00:00:00.0 海峡时报-新加坡原网页

SINGAPORE - As simulated attackers tried to overload an electrical system, cripple a water distribution network and shut down a gas plant, cyber defence operators across 26 national agencies sprang into action to neutralise the assaults on a fictional state’s critical infrastructure.

These were among the scenarios that more than 200 participants went through from Nov 22 to 24 during the second Critical Infrastructure Defence Exercise held at the National University of Singapore.

The three-day exercise organised by the SAF’s Digital and Intelligence Service (DIS) and Cyber Security Agency of Singapore (CSA) involved employees from organisations such as Changi Airport Group, national water agency PUB, Senoko Energy and Singtel.

To ensure that the scenarios were realistic, officers from the DIS, CSA, the Defence Science and Technology Agency and Infocomm Media Development Authority modelled their attacks on Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) and cyber criminal groups’ tactics and methods, said Colonel Tan Shengyang, commander of the DIS’ Cyber Defence Group.

Col Tan said the primary objective of the exercise is to prepare and train Singapore’s cyber defenders in the critical information infrastructure sectors, which includes “an experience of what it is like to be in a nation-under-attack scenario”. Such sectors include power, water, telecom and aviation.

Preparations for the exercise took about four months, and about 1,000 physical and virtual systems were created for this purpose, he added.

Military Expert 4 (ME4) Yvonne Tan, who was in charge of leading a team of participants from PUB and CSA in defending a water plant network, said the simulated attack started with a phishing e-mail, followed by an attack on the physical test bed, where values from the water plant were manipulated by hackers. “We had to closely monitor what are the vulnerabilities that are exposed to the external facing, Internet-connected systems, and how we can remediate this action,” she said.

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Part of the scenarios included how quickly critical systems can be restored after being attacked. Often times, agencies have business continuity plans that can include steps like re-cloning a system, or reverting the digital platform to a previous stable version, she added.

Speaking to the media on Nov 24, Senior Minister of State for Defence Heng Chee How said cyber attacks have become a fact of life.

“You can see so many examples in the world – real wars, real attacks, commercial sector, security-related sectors – everyday life is disrupted,” he said.

This exercise therefore provides a platform for agencies to jointly prepare to deal with such attacks, he said.

“(It) brings together many agencies throughout Government to come together to learn how to defend together,” Mr Heng added.

This year’s exercise involved twice as many participants as the inaugural edition in 2022, a sign that more of the nation’s digital infrastructure needs to be prepared to face down cyber attacks. The number of participating agencies also grew from 17 to 26.

Separately, DIS also signed memorandums of understanding for cyber collaboration with Google, ST Engineering and Ensign InfoSecurity, a cyber security joint venture between StarHub and Temasek. The Ministry of Defence said the agreements will help expand DIS’ partnership with the technology sector.