WIREDGOV

For the first time, Singapore has called out a China-linked cyber threat actor group, to the chagrin of Asia's regional hegemon.

‘The intent of this threat actor in attacking Singapore is quite clear’, Singapore’s Coordinating Minister for National Security and Minister for Home Affairs Mr. K Shanmugam noted.

‘They are going after high value, strategic targets. Vital infrastructure that delivers our essential services. If it succeeds, it can conduct espionage, and it can cause major disruption to Singapore and Singaporeans,’ he continued.

On 18 July, during the Cyber Security Agency’s 10th anniversary dinner, Minister Shanmugam used his first speech in his new role to call out a Chinese-linked cyber threat actor group ‘UNC3886' for targeting the country’s critical infrastructure.

Singapore, like most countries – and especially Southeast Asian ones – has historically refrained from publicly ‘naming and shaming’ other states or state-linked actors conducting cyber operations. But the speech marked a shift in that posture. For the first time, Singapore publicly attributed a cyber incident to an Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) group, signalling a new phase in how the country addresses the complex interplay between geopolitics and cyber operations, restraint and responses.

For many it might seem unprecedented, but a closer look reveals a Singapore that has been thinking and testing a ‘naming without (fully) naming’ strategy for some time. While Singapore did not go as far as to attribute explicitly to China, there are lessons to be learnt from a small, highly digitised city-state’s use of attribution in a region fraught with geopolitical tensions and with the pressures of a cyber power such as China.

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