Govt calls for public consultation on proposed Cybersecurity Bill

THE Ministry of Communications and Information (MCI) and the Cyber Security Agency of Singapore (CSA) have called for public feedback on the proposed Cybersecurity Bill which is likely to be tabled in Parliament later this year. The public consultation exercise started from noon on Monday, and will run till Aug 3.

With cyber attacks getting increasingly frequent, sophisticated and impactful, the proposed Cybersecurity Bill seeks to establish a framework for the oversight and maintenance of national cyber security in Singapore, and will empower CSA to carry out its functions.

Among other things, the Bill will provide a framework for the regulation of critical information infrastructure (CII) owners. CIIs include networks such as the country's telecommunications backbone. The Bill will formalise the duties of CII owners, spelling out their responsibilities, and the Act will also empower sector leads to raise the level of cyber security within their own sectors.

The Bill also seeks to provide CSA with powers to manage and respond to cyber security threats and incidents. The powers in section 15A of the Computer Misuse and Cybersecurity Act (CMCA), which pertain to cyber security, were enacted before the formation of CSA. Under the new Bill, specific powers will be vested in CSA officers as sitting powers so as to allow CSA officers to deal with fast-moving cyber security threats and incidents.

The proposed Bill will focus on cyber security while cybercrime will continue to be addressed in the CMCA.

The Bill also seeks to introduce a lighter-touch licensing framework for the regulation of selected cyber security service providers. For example, the Bill proposes licensing the provision of penetration testing and managed security operations centre (SOC) services. The proposed licensing framework aims to help provide greater assurance of safety and security to consumers of cyber security services.

The public consultation paper and procedures for submission of feedback are available on the REACH public consultation portal.