Chapter 2 WWW.TARGET.SG Featured Topic Mr Teo Chee Hean (Senior Minister and Coordinating Minister for National Security), Mr S Iswaran (Minister for Communications and Information and Ministerin-Charge of Cybersecurity), and Dr Janil Puthucheary (Senior Minister of State (SMS) for Communications and Information and SMSin-Charge of Cybersecurity) interacting with exercise participants during Exercise Cyber Star 2019. Source: MCI. How CSA Combats Cyber Threats CSA provides dedicated and centralised oversight of national cybersecurity functions to protect the nation on two fronts: • by strengthening the resiliency of Singapore’s Critical Information Infrastructure (CII) sectors; and • by responding swiftly to cybersecurity threats and vulnerabilities. Strengthening Resiliency of the CII Sectors To maintain situational awareness, CSA tracks developments in cyberspace closely to understand cyber threats and emerging issues. By forewarning CII sectors about cyber threats and issues, CSA can better anticipate and implement actions in a timely manner to prevent and disrupt potential cyber-attacks. In the event of large-scale cyber incidents affecting multiple CII sectors, CSA takes on the role of the National Incident Manager and coordinates cross-sector incident response, directing national-level mitigation measures against cyber threats. When the need arises, CSA will deploy the National Cyber Incident Response 26 Cybersecurity Exercises SINGAPORE CYBER LANDSCAPE 2019 Teams (NCIRTs) to assist affected CII sectors. CSA also conducts cyber research and analysis over the long-term to provide strategic insights on both the global and local cyber landscapes and developments. These insights aim to inform CSA’s operations and provide valuable guidance to national cyber policy-making. CSA also conducts regular cybersecurity exercises involving CII sectors to strengthen their preparedness against cyber threats. The exercises allow sectors to assess their capabilities and identify opportunities to enhance their processes. Over the course of a few days, Singapore witnessed a spate of sudden and rapid escalation of cyber-attacks. Several websites belonging to the Government and media outlets suffered from mass defacement attacks. Subsequently, there were disruptions to Internet access and communications networks, leaving users unable to access multiple online essential services. At the airport, flight information systems displayed unintelligible content and baggage handling systems were not sorting passenger baggage properly. Ships in Singapore waters were not able to receive maritime traffic information, while cranes at the ports started malfunctioning. Equipment in healthcare facilities stopped working, severely hampering medical support around the island. Fortunately, these were only the highlights of the complex intertwined scenarios in CSA’s nationwide cyber crisis management exercise codenamed Cyber Star (XCS), which aimed to enhance Singapore’s crisis management capabilities and readiness to respond promptly and effectively to a cyber-attack. XCS participants were tested with realistic scenarios of multi-dimensional cyber threats such as Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks, Domain Name System (DNS) manipulation, Industrial Control Systems (ICS) compromise, phishing websites, ransomware and supply chain attacks. Over 250 representatives from the 11 CII sectors and private sector underwent a series of scenario planning sessions, operational workshops and table-top discussions before culminating in a final operations-based exercise, where they developed and tested their incident management and emergency response plans to these simulated cyber-attacks. Separately, over 500 participants from CII sectors (such as Banking & Finance, Healthcare, Land Transport, Security & Emergency and Water) took part in exercises codenamed CyberArk (XCA) to review and validate their cybersecurity capabilities and incident response plans. These sector-specific exercises, which were conducted throughout the whole of 2019, were aimed at strengthening readiness and capabilities within CII sectors. 27