NUS, Singtel set up new lab for cybersecurity research

SINGAPORE — Devising ways to protect vulnerable surveillance cameras in homes and workplaces, and improving the anonymisation of users within data that is used to detect cyber attacks — these are just two examples of work that will get underway at a new S$42.8 million cybersecurity laboratory in the next five years.

A partnership between the National University of Singapore (NUS) and telecommunications giant Singtel, the NUS-Singtel Cyber Security Lab is targeting to host more than 100 research staff members and train about 120 new cybersecurity professionals from undergraduate to postdoctoral level.

Funding will be split equally among the university, Singtel and the National Research Foundation.

The lab aims to develop new data analytics techniques that allow IT service providers to detect and respond to security attacks in real-time. It is also looking to come up with new approaches to design and implement IT systems that are “secure by design” in order to resist a broad array of attacks.

There are growing concerns worldwide about unsecured Internet of Things (IoT) devices. These are Internet-enabled products or systems linked in a real-time network to serve their users — such as closed-circuit TV cameras, household appliances or even autonomous vehicles — and they also collect and share personal data.

Mr Bill Chang, Singtel’s chief executive of group enterprise, said: “We have gazillions of IoT devices being deployed and you can imagine IoT cannot grow rapidly without having this problem solved.”

Professor David Rosenblum, director of the new lab, said that many surveillance cameras that people are buying for their homes or companies and attaching to the Internet are not securely designed.

“They come with default passwords, for example, and the customers go out and buy these things and never change the passwords. And the attackers, of course, know what the default password is, and so it’s very easy to go in and exploit these very insecure devices and start to do nasty things with them,” he said. “So the onus falls on service providers like Singtel to put those security capabilities in to compensate for lack of security of the users.”

The lab follows recent initiatives to boost cybersecurity expertise, such as the launch of Singapore’s Cyber Security Strategy two weeks ago, and NUS’ launch of the Singapore Cybersecurity Consortium, which already has 14 industry partners including Singtel.

Officially launching the lab on Monday (Oct 24), Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean spoke of a cybersecurity breach that happened in Singapore, that of the case of K Box karaoke chain where more than 300,000 of its customers’ details were uploaded online in 2014.

Overseas, there were the multiple cyberattacks last Friday against United States-based Internet traffic management company Dyn, which affected access to Paypal, Twitter, Netflix and other sites.

Last month, French Internet service provider OVH was victim to a cyber attack carried out using a network of more than 150,000 IoT devices that were hijacked.