COI Report – Part VII
Page
246 of
425 713. However, the evidence shows that the
SingHealth GCIO Benedict does not have the resources to properly fulfil his functions in respect of cybersecurity. His GCIO office comprises about 50 staff, but these were mostly IT directors from SingHealth’s PHIs and domain/business analysts. Specifically for cybersecurity, Benedict is supported by a team of one – the Cluster ISO Wee.
Benedict’s evidence is that he and Wee “
collaborate” with IHiS’ Delivery Group and CSG on cybersecurity matters, but generally, they are reliant on IHiS because the technical and engineering capabilities are all centralised within IHiS.
Benedict’s own evidence is that his technical expertise is limited – for example, as regards approving proposed management
responses to audit findings, he can only consider their adequacy “
to the extent of his technical knowledge”.
714. As a result, SingHealth’s senior management,
who rely on Benedict, are left dependent on the central IHiS team to manage SingHealth’s cybersecurity risks. This was confirmed by SingHealth’s Dy GCEO Prof. Kenneth, who explained that even at management level, SingHealth is totally dependent on
IHiS for their oversight on cybersecurity risks. This position is difficult to sustain in the light of the new Cybersecurity Code of Practice
51
(“
CCoP”) which requires CII owners (
i.e. SingHealth) to
establish and approve policies, standards and guidelines for managing cybersecurity risks and protecting CII against cybersecurity threats, and to also review the policies, standards and guidelines against the current CII cyber operating environment and cybersecurity threat landscape at least once a year, starting from the date of the last review or the
effective date of each policy, standard or guideline.
716. SingHealth acknowledged that based on the present relationships, generally, domain expertise and resources lie with IHiS on the one hand, whereas risks and responsibilities lie with SingHealth on the other. In order to improve on the current governance
and risk management framework, SingHealth requires The CCoP was issued on 1 September 2018.