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At the regional level, Singapore worked with fellow member States of the
Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to issue the first ASEAN leaders ’
statement on cybersecurity cooperation, during the thirty -second ASEAN Summit ,
held in April 2018. In the statement, ASEAN leaders reaffirmed the need for a rules based international order in cyberspace. They also tasked relevant ministers with
identifying a suitable mechanism or platform for coordinating cybersecurity policy,
diplomacy, cooperation and technical and capacity-building efforts across ASEAN,
as well as a concrete list of voluntary, practical norms of State behaviour in
cyberspace that ASEAN can work towards adopting. Acting on the leaders ’ statement,
in September 2018, participants at the third ASEA N Ministerial Conference on
Cybersecurity, held in Singapore, agreed to subscribe in principle to the 11 norms in
the 2015 report of the Group of Governmental Experts (A/70/174), as well as to focus
on regional capacity-building in implementing these norms.
Capacity-building is essential to ensuring that States develop the ability to
successfully implement rules and norms of behaviour. Singapore has a S$10 millio n
ASEAN Cyber Capacity Programme, a modular, multidisciplinary and
multi-stakeholder programme that is focused on building capacity in ASEA N
countries on cyberpolicy, strategy and technical issues. Since its inception in 2016,
160 ASEAN officials have been trained under the Programme. Singapore has als o
partnered with the Office for Disarmament Affairs to develop a flagship online
training course to promote understanding and implement agreements reached by the
Group of Governmental Experts. It will also work with the Office on a United
Nations-Singapore cyberprogramme to build awareness of cybernorms and policy
planning on cyberscenarios in ASEAN member States. As an extension of the ASEA N
Cyber Capacity Programme, Singapore will launch the S$30 million ASEAN Singapore Cybersecurity Centre of Excellence in 2019 to further build cybersecurity
policymaking, strategy development and technical and operational capacity in
ASEAN countries. The Centre will be open and inclusive, and ASEAN member States
can leverage it to engage more closely with international partners.
At the national level, Singapore has made significant strides in strengthening
the cybersecurity of its systems and networks on the following three fronts, namely
building resilient infrastructure, creating a safer cyberspace and developing a vib rant
cybersecurity ecosystem:
(a) Building resilient infrastructure. Transboundary cyberthreats are
increasingly putting countries ’ critical infrastructure at risk. This is especially true for
supranational information infrastructure, such as in the financial, marit ime,
telecommunications and aviation sectors, where the consequences of a successful
cyberattack could spread beyond national borders to affect interconnected centres
across the globe. A key development in 2018 was the passage and implementatio n of
the Cybersecurity Act, which established a legal framework for the oversight and
maintenance of national cybersecurity in Singapore. In the Act, proactive protection
against cyberattacks on critical information infrastructure, which means computers or
computer systems that support the provision of essential services, is emphasized. This
protection is achieved by imposing legal obligations on the owners of such
infrastructure to, among other things, do the following: (i) establish mechanisms to
detect cybersecurity threats and incidents and report such incidents; (ii) conduct
regular risk assessments and audits of critical information infrastructure; and
(iii) participate in cybersecurity exercises conducted by the national cybersecurity
authority. In addition to strengthening the protection of such infrastructure, the
national cybersecurity authority is also authorized, under the Act, to prevent, respond
to and investigate cybersecurity threats and incidents;
(b) Creating a safer cyberspace. In January 2019, Singapore attained the
status of a certificate-authorizing nation under the common criteria recognition
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