SINGAPORE — The Cyber Security Agency (CSA) is setting up the first academy in Singapore to train experienced cyber security professionals, plugging gaps not covered by institutes of higher learning.

Announcing this at the opening of the Singapore International Cyber Week yesterday, Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean said the CSA Academy will partner industry players, such as cyber security providers, to offer training to professionals in government and critical infrastructure sectors, for a start.

The academy, which will open within the next six months, will also offer training to professionals in the private sector, but at a later stage. The first partner will be American cyber security services provider FireEye, which will provide training on incident response and malware analysis, said Mr Teo.

Other details will be announced later. He flagged the investment in people and cyber security capabilities as key areas to build up a more secure eco-system, given that Singapore has seen its share of cyber attacks, being highly-connected and more exposed than other countries.

“We are deepening our partnerships with key stakeholders — in industry, the professional associations, owners of critical information infrastructure, and international counterparts — to encourage good cybersecurity, and create a safer and more secure cyberspace,” said Mr Teo.

The training at the CSA Academy will offer “targeted niche areas that go beyond what is normally available in the market”, according to the CSA.

Its chief executive David Koh said: “The training has by and large been driven by the private industry and the institutes of higher learning. And to some extent, there have been successes. Two years ago, we didn’t have any undergraduate course in cyber security. Today, all the polytechnics and universities are offering cyber security courses.

“CSA Academy is not a manifestation that there is a problem … rather it is trying to look at where the gaps are. So we realised that in certain areas, there are certain niche capabilities, for example in industrial control systems, there is currently a gap, and we need to push industry forward to address some of these gaps.”

For industrial control systems, he was referring to IT systems that control production systems such as water and energy.

Mr Teo also noted in his speech that the CSA worked with the Industrial Control Systems community to develop a set of cyber security guidelines for industrial control systems such as those used in the energy, water, maritime and land transport sectors.

Beyond Singapore, he also talked about the need to strengthen international partnerships to tackle cyber threats effectively. For instance, Singapore will strengthen cooperation among national Computer Emergency Response Teams.

He noted that when the CSA discovered malware targeting a particular vulnerability last year, the Singapore Computer Emergency Response Team informed its counterparts in India about potential threats to theirsystems.

“Such partnerships will allow us to better deploy our limited resources, and speed up our responses globally, to counter increasingly sophisticated cyber threats.”

He also noted that critical information infrastructure (CII) in one country may have impact or be dependent on CIIs in another country — such as global payment, port operations or air traffic control systems.

Efforts can be coordinated across countries and sectors to conduct regular exercises to collectively respond to threats that may affect such CIIs, Mr Teo said.