Chitchat Update on Civil Service Internet Block of its Network

For those interested on the reasons behind the separation of the Govt Network and the internet.

1. Ministry for Foreign Affairs was successfully penetrated in 2014.

2. In 2009, delegates to APEC conference held in Singapore became targets of spear phishing and I understand that it was came in multiple waves which is usually the case for spear phishing

3. Both attacks believed to be have originated from the same entity.

4. Focus and target of this entity is South East Asia and India and its associated and linked political bodies such as Asean and Apec.

5. In view of the regional target focus, capability used and forensics assessments behind these attacks, it is clearly a nation state attack and China is the likely candidate.

6. Issues in the South China Sea has raised the level of concern coupled with Singapore's link to known adversaries of China. These includes the positions taken by countries at such meetings and also includes countries dealing with he Singapore government with assets here such subs and littoral military assets.

7. Following review of the MFA breach, CSA (Cyber Security Agency) formed and the decision to move towards Air-Gap separation of government networks and the outside online world in April 2015. Limited pilot on Air-Gap separation commences that same month

I believe if Chief Natural Aristocrat is willing to spend money on hiring real world-class IT talents, there'll be no need to air-gap government servers.

The only entity that needs to be air-gapped is MAS whose reputation is in shreds. Every few years the whole world learns that Sinkieland is the world's money-laundering hub.

NaturalAristocratNoHeart said:

I believe if Chief Natural Aristocrat is willing to spend money on hiring real world-class IT talents, there'll be no need to air-gap government servers.

The only entity that needs to be air-gapped is MAS whose reputation is in shreds. Every few years the whole world learns that Sinkieland is the world's money-laundering hub.

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Hiring top talent does not help because all it takes is for one civil servant to create a vulnerability by not following procedures and the whole network is compromised.

same thing can happen to this forum if moderators are given admin rights. If they are tricked into installing an add on the whole database can be accessed by hackers.

Some additional update. Looks like the MFA breached must have set the cats amongst the pigeons. Not only was CSA formed and trials beginning in April, Singtel who manage the international truck lines got a rocket up their arse and went and bought Trustwave, lock, stock and barrel. Trustwave is better known for its Spider Labs. For those who need context, they bought a cow for the milk which shows signs of desperation.

It does look like we have been compromised for quite a while to come to this state of actions.

china knows a little red spot has been spying on them on behalf of big brother. It's pay back time.

We got so many brilliant minds ...how many scholars do we have? Then there are the foreign scholars turned naturalized sinkees.

All these brains cannot help?

What lah ...we have been wasting hundreds of millions dollars on these 'scholars' then.

This not call spying. It is call understanding your friends better.

mojito said:

This not call spying. It is call understanding your friends better.

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True true.. that's Google.

Leongsam said:

Hiring top talent does not help because all it takes is for one civil servant to create a vulnerability by not following procedures and the whole network is compromised.

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Real world-class IT talents would have anticipated such an eventuality and taken appropriate measures to prevent such incidents from occurring.

Tell me how many times have the servers of NSA, FBI or CIA been hacked into?

scroobal said:

Some additional update. Looks like the MFA breached must have set the cats amongst the pigeons........

It does look like we have been compromised for quite a while to come to this state of actions.

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It's quite ironic, isn't it...... considering the fact that Interpol's cybercrime unit is based in Sinkieland??

A little bird from the West told me that every now and then real world-class IT experts on cybersecurity and anti-hacking would come to Sinkieland to conduct courses. Tell me, scroobal, how is it that our talents in the public service didn't learn the tools of the trade from them and apply the knowledge to their real-world office settings?

Moreover some hacking companies even set up shop in Sinkieland to sell intrusion software (a/k/a spyware) to our Sinkie government agency. A clandestine company called PCS whose address is in New Phoenix Road was "caught" buying such software for tens of thousands of Sing $. It was in the news 2 or 3 years ago.

This video probably freak out Ah Loong. He scared his civil serpants posts nonsense on their facebook accounts.

blardy fools to think air gap separation can solve the problem. System can be hacked from the inside.

I have said this years ago. Lee laws are powerless against non-Singaporeans and Singaporeans outside of the rock.

iluvgst said:

blardy fools to think air gap separation can solve the problem. System can be hacked from the inside.

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Exactly. The most famous whistleblower of all time--at least up till now--didn't need to hack into NSA's servers. He WAS on NSA payroll.

PAP probably too busy spying on Sporeans that they forgot about the real threat form the outside world.