Why Singapore Is Barring Its Public Servants from the Internet

Singapore has taken steps to cut its civil servants off from the Internet in order to protect the city-state’s networks from intrusion and hacking. According to The Guardian, around May 2017, Singaporean officials will move to disconnect, or “air gap”, certain computers from the Internet, particularly those working with sensitive data. Public servants will still be allowed to access it through personal and government-sanctioned devices.

However, some security experts say that the measure is drastic and may be of little benefit; indeed, while air-gapping is typically used in security-related fields, it is rarely used in government in such a sweeping manner. Ben Desjardins, a director at network security firm Radware, commented to The Guardian that it was “one of the more extreme measures I can recall by a large public organization to combat cyber security risks.”

Moreover, air-gapping has been proven to be vulnerable to attack. The Verge describes a 2015 demonstration by Israeli security researchers in which an air-gapped network was breached using a phone, a GSM network, and electromagnetic waves.

Barring civil servants from the Internet may result in lost productivity and only marginally improved security.

The question is whether the magnitude of Singapore’s cyber-threat warrants such dramatic policies. David Koh, head of the Singaporean Cyber Security Agency, said to The Guardian that the decision was prompted by a realization that the threat to sensitive data “is too real.” This may be especially true in Southeast Asia, where the threat of cyber-attack can be 80% higher, particularly in regions embroiled in territorial disputes in the South China Sea.