Debated in Parliament on 16 May 2014.
In a globalised and interdependent world, threats to national security can develop quickly, can be omni-directional and can disrupt not just a singular target, but cause interconnected failures.
The National Security Coordination Secretariat (NSCS) works with various Government agencies to tackle multi-agency and cross-domain security challenges in key areas, such as maritime security, food security, cybersecurity and critical infrastructure security. NSCS also carries out longer-term studies to map out potential threats to national security and explores new concepts, strategies and technologies that can address them. Drawing on these studies, NSCS catalyses a coordinated and collaborative approach that harnesses the synergies across agencies to pilot and develop new capabilities.
NSCS' Risk Assessment and Horizon Scanning (RAHS) Programme helps us to better anticipate emerging issues and national security risks. Together with academic and international partners, the RAHS Programme has experimented with and developed processes and products that have helped Government agencies identify, analyse, model and monitor areas, such as the evolving range of cyber threats. The RAHS methodology is continually refined and will be used to analyse issues, such as extreme weather hazards and food security.
NSCS has worked with DSO National Laboratories to identify, understand and model the interconnectivities within and across the various domains of Singapore's national security to identify critical interdependencies and potential vulnerabilities. Such interdependency studies on national network infrastructure, such as the national telecommunications network, will help agencies to understand where critical inter-system dependencies and where vulnerabilities need to be addressed for greater resilience. The pilot phase of these studies focused on three key sectors of national network infrastructure – Energy, Water and Infocomms. The next phase will map other critical sectors, such as Transport and Healthcare.
To catalyse cybersecurity research and capability development, the National Cyber Security R&D Programme was launched in October 2013. Jointly supported by MHA, MINDEF, IDA, EDB, NRF and NSCS, the S$130 million programme provides an open platform for collaboration across Government agencies, academia, research institutes and the private sector to protect Singapore's information infrastructure and national assets. A grant call for research project proposals was launched on 7 March 2014 and closed on 2 May 2014.
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Our national security also depends on the vigilance and resilience of all Singaporeans. NSCS will continue to educate and engage Singaporeans on our national security risks, through multiple platforms and channels.
Even as we try to prevent any national security incident from taking place, it is also important to build up our society's capability and resilience to withstand shocks and to emerge stronger from them. NSCS, therefore, also coordinates research to better inform policies to build social resilience in Singapore.
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