COI Report – Part V
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425 34.3 Raising of National Cyber Threat Alert Level 659. The National Cyber Threat Alert Level (“
NCTAL”) provides the national level of alert in the cyber domain in Singapore, which is derived from the associated threats and the corresponding required responses. In anticipation of potential opportunistic attacks on sensitive systems by individuals or groups stemming from the media
release about the Cyber Attack, CSA sought approval from the Chairman of CMG(Cyber)
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on 19 July 2018 to raise the NCTAL on the day of the press conference, and CII sectors were instructed to adopt heightened defence measures as a precautionary measure.
34.4 Publishing advisories on protection and precautionary measures 660. SingCERT published two advisories on 20 July 2018. The first was a technical advisory on measures for the protection of customers personal data. This was tailored to companies and incorporated specific recommendations
for companies to adopt, in order to protect their systems and networks from the MO of the attacker and the vulnerabilities that had been exploited. The second advisory on precautionary measures to take, in view of the SingHealth incident, was tailored to members of the public to encourage them to take precautionary measures to protect themselves from the misuse of the personal data that had been exfiltrated from SingHealth.
In this advisory, SingCERT recommended that members of the public enable two-factor authentication (especially for users of e-government services and i-banking transactions, change their passwords (if their passwords had been derived from PII), and check for possible fraudulent transactions.
661. After SingHealth started sending out SMS messages to notify affected citizens, SingCERT received feedback that there were phishing SMS messages Crisis Management Groups (“
CMGs”) support the Homefront Crisis Executive Group’s (“
HCEG”) management of crises across different sectors of the nation. CMG(Cyber) is responsible for specifically managing cybersecurity incidents and implementing incident mitigation efforts during significant cyber incidents in Singapore.
