"Members may ask, so what if the botnet had remained? Well, it would have meant the devices were vulnerable, and personal data belonging to device owners could have been stolen," said Mrs Teo.
"More worryingly, the devices could be used as a standby army, much like our NSFs (full-time national servicemen), ready to be deployed into active duty.
"Except in this case, it would be foreign state-linked actors using the bots for malicious purposes, which can include targets directed within Singapore."
Mrs Teo was speaking in parliament on the Ministry of Digital Development and Information's (MDDI) spending plans for the year.
The cyber operation involved the disabling of malware from the infected devices.
As part of remediation efforts, CSA has reached out to relevant parties to inform owners of these devices that their devices had been infected, and for them to take the necessary measures.
CSA then monitored the previously infected devices for a period of time to ensure that the malware had been fully disabled.
Continue reading...
"More worryingly, the devices could be used as a standby army, much like our NSFs (full-time national servicemen), ready to be deployed into active duty.
"Except in this case, it would be foreign state-linked actors using the bots for malicious purposes, which can include targets directed within Singapore."
Mrs Teo was speaking in parliament on the Ministry of Digital Development and Information's (MDDI) spending plans for the year.
The cyber operation involved the disabling of malware from the infected devices.
As part of remediation efforts, CSA has reached out to relevant parties to inform owners of these devices that their devices had been infected, and for them to take the necessary measures.
CSA then monitored the previously infected devices for a period of time to ensure that the malware had been fully disabled.
Continue reading...