SINGAPORE — A S$200 million Cyber Security Centre of Excellence, which will monitor and detect threats, offer courses in cybersecurity and strengthen cybersecurity capabilities, was launched on Wednesday (May 18) by telco StarHub in collaboration with industry partners.

The joint investment is over the next five years, and the partners include Nanyang Polytechnic, Republic Polytechnic, Temasek Polytechnic, the Singapore University of Technology and Design, and five industry partners that are mostly security solutions providers and a consultancy, namely Blue Coat, Cyberbit, Fortinet, Wedge Networks, and EY. 

Minister for Trade and Industry (Industry) S Iswaran, who officiated the launch, said: “Cybersecurity is one of the growth sectors that the Committee on the Future Economy has been actively studying. It is an area that has come up repeatedly ... and our vision is for Singapore to be the security hub for the region ... with leadership positions in specific verticals where we have existing strengths, such as the manufacturing and finance sectors.” 

The Committee on the Future Economy was set up by the Government last October to chart the future of Singapore’s economy and to identify how to improve the skillsets of the workforce.

To help address the shortage of cybersecurity professionals, StarHub said it is committed to training at least 300 specialists in different cyber-related capabilities over the next five years.

In the first collaboration, StarHub and Nanyang Polytechnic have jointly set up a lab on the school campus to provide training for students in a cyber and forensics course. The telco will build labs at the three other institutes of higher learning as well. 

StarHub’s chief executive Tan Tong Hai said the telco is also targeting to offer a service for businesses via a new StarHub Security Operations Centre, where threats may be detected even before they reach the firewall.

Mr Kevin Lim, StarHub’s chief commercial officer, elaborated: “Most companies ... within their intranet, they will be able to set up firewalls, and even behind the firewalls, set up endpoint security solutions to try and protect their network.” 

With heavy Internet usage, especially with cloud and mobility solutions, Mr Lim said there are “pipes” that can be bought from StarHub that access the Internet and go into the IT network, and the telco monitors these pipes in the IT environment.

A cybersecurity expert says this method will work only for certain threats such as distributed denial of service, but not for malware. 

Mr Anthony Lim, a consultant at ISC2, a global cybersecurity professional certification body, said: “Malware can (enter) the system and hide, but they cannot be detected in advance before they reach the firewall. And very sophisticated malware virtually cannot be detected.”