CSA Launches the SME Cybersecurity Excellence Award to Recognize Singapore Business’ Commitment to Cybersecurity

1              The Cyber Security Agency of Singapore (CSA) and the Association of Trade & Commerce (Singapore) [ATC] have launched a new SME Cybersecurity Excellence Award to recognise small and medium enterprises in Singapore that are committed to cybersecurity. The launch of this new Award and several new initiatives under CSA’s SG Cyber Safe Programme for enterprises was announced today by Mr Tan Kiat How, Senior Minister of State, Ministry of Communications and Information & Ministry of National Development, at the Singapore International Cyber Week (SICW) 2022.

2              The SME Cybersecurity Excellence Award is developed in partnership with ATC, which manages the long-running Singapore SME 500 Awards. For businesses that have gone digital, cybersecurity is a foundational and fundamental component of their business operations.  Businesses that wish to apply for the SME Cybersecurity Excellence Award must fulfil one additional criterion: they must have attained the Cyber Essentials^[1] mark. The SME Cybersecurity Excellence Award will be open for applications by SMEs in Singapore from today. More information on the Awards can be found at https://csea.atc.sg.

3              The announcement of the SME Cybersecurity Award follows the launch of the CSA’s Cyber Essentials and Cyber Trust^[2]  in March 2022 to nudge businesses to place cybersecurity in the centre of their operations.  To date, more than 60 companies have applied for the two trust marks, out of which 31 and 12 companies have attained Cyber Essentials and Cyber Trust, respectively.

4              One of the early adopters of the Cyber Trust mark is DBS Bank. “As Singapore’s economy continues to digitalise, companies must pay heed to managing threats posed by cybercriminals seeking to exploit gaps in the ever-evolving technology landscape. Cybersecurity is a cornerstone of DBS’ digitalisation efforts. We have adopted a multi-prong strategy which includes fortifying our cyber defence capabilities through multi-layered defence, continuous security control validation and mitigation, extended security monitoring, as well as operation automation coverage. These enable us to scale and handle alert spikes. We also value our partnerships with stakeholders such as CSA to strengthen our protection of customers from cyber threats. DBS is pleased to be an early adopter of the Cyber Trust mark, which has been helpful in benchmarking our cybersecurity preparedness against international standards.”, says Keng Seng Wei, Chief Information Security Officer, DBS.

5              Cybersecurity is not just for large enterprises – smaller enterprises are also vulnerable to cyber-attacks as they may lack the resources and cyber defences of larger enterprises. One of the early adopters of the Cyber Essentials mark is CyberSafe Pte Ltd. “The Cyber Essentials and Cyber Trust certification marks allow us to communicate to our clients and stakeholders our emphasis in keeping their systems and data safe. With the increase in supply chain-related attacks, more organisations are requiring their vendors to re-qualify on risk assessments. CSA certification marks are great benchmarks to illustrate vendor compliance within the supply chain. Apart from an increase in revenue and consumer confidence, CyberSafe had primarily taken up Cyber Essentials certification to serve as a role-model to everyday SMEs in the market on the value-add that these CSA certification marks will bring.”, says Dave Gurbani, Chief Executive Officer, CyberSafe.

6              To further encourage take-up of the Cyber Essentials and Cyber Trust, CSA is progressively curating and building up a directory of solutions and service providers that will facilitate prospective companies’ application for either of the trust marks. This online directory will match businesses with providers that meet their needs. It will include a listing of attributes such as the providers’ target customer profile, track record, or whether the providers themselves are certified under the Cyber Essentials or Cyber Trust marks. This online directory will be available on the CSA website from today.

Six SG Cyber Safe Partners and Certification Bodies Recognised

7              At the SICW event, CSA also recognised 6 key industry partners^[3] for their contributions to the SG Cyber Safe partnership programme. The partnership programme – launched at SICW 2021 – brings together private sector organisations and CSA to work hand-in-hand to raise cybersecurity awareness and encourage adoption of good cybersecurity practices by members of the public and enterprises. One of these partners is the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce (SCCCI), who has been very active in working with CSA to drive cybersecurity awareness amongst its members. SCCCI also facilitated workshops for its members to provide CSA with feedback, enabling CSA to finetune its cybersecurity initiatives for enterprises. In addition to acknowledging key industry partners, CSA also acknowledged the contributions of the key certification bodies that had made strong contributions to the Cyber Essentials and Cyber Trust certification scheme.

^[1] Cyber Essentials is a certification by CSA that recognises SMEs with basic cybersecurity measures - such as protecting and controlling access; backing up data and updating software; and developing an incident response plan - to safeguard their operations and/or systems from common cyber-attacks. 

^[2] Cyber Trust is targeted at MNCs and larger enterprises that are more advanced in their digitalisation journey.

^[3] They are the Singapore Business Federation, Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SCCCI), Microsoft Singapore, BSI Group Singapore Pte Ltd, Guardian Independent Certification Pte Ltd, and ISOCert Pte Ltd.

About the Cyber Security Agency of Singapore

Established in 2015, the Cyber Security Agency of Singapore (CSA) seeks to keep Singapore’s cyberspace safe and secure to underpin our Nation Security, power a Digital Economy and protect our Digital Way of Life. It maintains an oversight of national cybersecurity functions and works with sector leads to protect Singapore’s Critical Information Infrastructure. CSA also engages with various stakeholders to heighten cyber security awareness, build a vibrant cybersecurity ecosystem supported by a robust workforce, pursue international partnerships and drive regional cybersecurity capacity building programmes.

CSA is part of the Prime Minister’s Office and is managed by the Ministry of Communications and Information. For more news and information, please visit www.csa.gov.sg.