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Singapore To Cut Off Internet Access For Government Workers From 2017 (thestack.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Government workers in Singapore will return to a 1990s-level of net connectivity from May of 2017, as the domestic government has decided to block internet access on all of its 100,000 office computers. The decision has been made in the interests of national security, although the Draconian policy will still permit workers to forward work mails to private email addresses as necessary. Workers' own devices will be allowed to connect to the internet normally by special terminals being provided in early trials, while intra-departmental connectivity will presumably be maintained via VPN tunneling. The move comes in the direct wake of a visit to Singapore from the U.S. Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter late last week, promoting stronger security ties with Singapore in the face of the rise of China in the region.BBC News has more details.
I work in I.T. for a small subsidiary of a massive Singaporean defense company and I really had no idea what I was getting into, the attacks from China/APTs are completely ridiculous in terms of scale and quantity. We've had everything from traditional external attacks, stolen certificates used against us to physical attacks on-site in just the last 4 years and we're comparatively tiny with only a few hundred staff serving mostly the private sector. From what I heard, it's even worse for MINDEF. This doesn't surprise me at all and frankly, it's probably a good thing for the Singaporeans.