Singapore to cut off internet access for government workers

The Straits Times reported that a memo is now going out to all government agencies, statutory board and ministries.

The memo is not being shared on the report.

“The Singapore Government regularly reviews our IT measures to make our network more secure”, a spokesman for the Infocomm Development Authority (IDA) told the Straits Times.

When contacted, a spokesperson from IDA clarified that internet access will still be available on specific work terminals which have internet access and employees will still be able to access the web on personal devices. This is somewhat similar to the Singapore Armed Force’s practice to have a dedicated intranet and individual terminals connected to the internet. In April, some IDA employees were made trial subjects.

It is also rather ironic as some have pointed out that this seems to go against Singapore’s Smart Nation technology initiative. “There are alternatives for internet access and the work that officers need to do, does not change”, read an official statement given to Marketing. But in a post-WikiLeaks world, ring-fencing government email systems in the radical way that Singapore is trialling offers a Gordian Knot-style solution to years of data breach scandals.

Speaking with The Straits Times, Aloysius Cheang, Asia-Pacific executive vice-president of Cloud Security Alliance based in the country, said this decision harks back to when the internet was severely restricted during the 1990s.

It is unclear what the full extent of the restriction on public sector staff in Singapore will entail.

Another user criticized the government’s lack of confidence in their own firewall, comparing it to North Korea and Burma (Myanmar). That attack resulted in the theft of Social Security numbers and other sensitive information about current and former government workers, applicants and contractors, as well as spouses of those who underwent background checks for security clearance.