Network Reliability Staff Engineer

Inside Singapore's push for proactive defence against cyberthreats. Centre for Strategic Infocomm Technologies chief executive Darren Teo said there has been a more proactive sharing of "weak signals", or data that is suspicious but not yet proven to be malicious. Published Oct 09, 2026, 01:01 PM Updated Oct 09, 2026, 05:09 PM SINGAPORE - Singapore's cyberdefenders have continued to encounter attacks by advanced persistent threat (APT) groups since it was publicly revealed in July 2025 that state-sponsored cyberespionage group UNC3886 had infiltrated the city-state's critical information infrastructure (CII). But these attacks are being detected and dealt with more effectively than before through more proactive information-sharing between CII operators, cybersecurity firms and government agencies, said Centre for Strategic Infocomm Technologies (CSIT) chief executive Darren Teo. This greater willingness to collaborate on suspicious network activity that may not cross the threshold into an actual attack - so-called "weak signals" - is crucial as APT groups continue to refine their methods to stay hidden within victims' networks, he added. Teo was speaking to The Straits Times ahead of TechCon 2026 on Oct 9, an annual closed-door conference hosted by CSIT, an agency under MINDEF focused on developing advanced cybersecurity capabilities to safeguard the Republic's digital infrastructure. At the previous TechCon in Oct 2025, Coordinating Minister for National Security K. Shanmugam had announced the setting up of a new digital defence unit within CSIT focused on countering sophisticated cyberthreat actors such as APT groups. One year on, the Digital Defence Hub (DDH) has increased the willingness of the various stakeholders to exchange weak signals early and conduct joint investigations, said Teo. This is a stark change from previous practice, when each part of the industry "more or less stayed in our own lane", he said. For instance, a CII operator used to reach out to its IT vendor only when it encountered a cyber problem.

NTT DATA and NTT Security Holdings today entered a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Centre for Strategic Infocomm Technologies (CSIT) to collaborate on strengthening Singapore's national cyber defense and to further explore areas of emerging digital technologies.