Singapore is second-most networked country, but this comes with more risks .
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Sweden may be the world’s most networked country but Singapore is only one rank lower.It is second in the Global Information Technology report ranking, according to the World Economic Forum yesterday.Singapore moved up from fourth place last year in the Networked Readiness Index, which looks at how prepared countriesare in using information communications technologies by measuring the general environment for the technologies, the readiness of individuals to use them as well as their actual usage.But such linkage comes with vulnerability to cyber-attacks, the risks of which was discussed yesterday at the Security and Application Forum.Experts at the forum said organisations handling sensitive data needed to ensure that their respective IT departments are aware of what each is doing.”In the past, everything was brick and mortar and you would have needed tanks (to launch an attack). Now, everything is interconnected. You can launch an attack from your couch,” said Mr Wong Loke Yeow, regional director of ArcSight, a company that provides security and compliance solutions.Mr Kunaciilan Nallappan, regional product manager from F5 Networks Singapore, said organisations such as tax authorities would be targeted because they had valuable personal information on citizens. “Those records can fetch money. Ultimately, it’s for the money.”McAfee sales manager Alvin Tan said organisations, on their part, would not only have to add layers of protection but also keep educating their employees on cyber security. “It has to be ongoing because the threats keep evolving,” he said.According to Mr Kunaciilan, there have been cases where a company’s network security personnel did not communicate with those handling applications, which contains all the data.”There’s a gap between the two groups because they work separately. It’s important for them to work together so theycan come up with a security policy that takes into account business processes,” he said.If they did not, security measures put in place may not be appropriate, might even be useless and hackers could plunder a company’s database.Besides monetary loss, there might even be “more damaging” loss of reputation.Mr Wong, who is also chairman of the security and governance chapter of the Singapore Infocomm Technology Federation, said if departments did not “talk” to each other, visitors to the building can steal data.A contractor, for instance, can tell one department that another department had said he could get a password from them. “And if that department didn’t know they were not supposed to give it, and did, he would then be able to gain access to things he was not supposed to gain access to.”On Monday, Acting Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts Lui Tuck Yew announced plans to introduce a Code of Practice on infocomm security later this year.These come under the Infocomm Security Masterplan 2, a five-year roadmap to protect Singapore against cyber-attacks.
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