Singapore’s Defense Ministry was a victim of a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) cyber attack early this month but was only announced on Tuesday. And it resulted in stealing of personal data of more than 850 employees which include conscripted military personnel.
The stolen data includes email ids, telephone numbers, date of births and national IDs.
And as per our sources, no classified military data was stolen in the breach on I-Net system and there is no evidence that the leaked data was passed on to Dark Web.
However, the Ministry of Defense(Mindef) of Singapore has confirmed that the attack was launched by some state-sponsored attacks in order to steal official secrets regarding a Military project.
David Koh, the Deputy Secretary of Singapore’s Mindef confirmed that the hack was not the work of casual hackers. He added that the act could open up a bigger conspiracy if properly investigated.
The I-Net systems offer some government agencies access to world wide web via dedicated terminals located on premises. As most public servants in Singapore are barred from accessing the internet from their work computers, I-Net serves them as an official gateway.
As only a few servers were attacked in this cyber heist, the government of Singapore has decided to turn off only the affected I-Net systems.
A clinical Forensic probe was launched last week and Mr. Koh announced that individuals or groups behind this attack will be seriously prosecuted.
Note- In the year 2013, a similar attack was launched by an Anonymous Group on the official website of Singapore Prime Minister. But the official probe made on the attack was never disclosed to the media for reasons.
Will the Government of Singapore follow the same in the latest cyber attack..?
Only time can give an apt answer to this million dollar question.
