S'pore less impacted by IT outage, but should stay humble & learn from incident: Josephine Teo

Essential and government services were mostly unaffected by the global IT outage triggered by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike's update, said Minister for Digital Development and Information Josephine Teo.

In a Facebook post on Jul. 20, Teo stated that some disrupted services, like postal services, had swiftly recovered due to activated business continuity plans.

She highlighted the importance of quick recovery capabilities in such scenarios.

"While we were less impacted, it will be unwise to think that we are more resilient than others," she said.

Services back to normal

The ministry has been working to support companies in Singapore whose services to the public were affected by the outages.

Most of the services are back to normal, Teo said.

She expressed her appreciation for those who have had to work under immense time pressure to fix the problems.

"Because of your dedication, fewer people have been inconvenienced and for shorter periods," she said.

Critical to have contingency plans

While cyberattacks have been ruled out as the cause of the outage, Teo maintained that Singapore must always plan for recovery and be able to implement those plans swiftly when needed.

She also pointed out how the outages all over the world showed the interconnectedness of the digital world, saying this serves as a reminder to every organisation to have in place a good business continuity plan and a good risk management process.

Good coordination between all parties — government, companies, and people, is needed, she said.

Teo added that the ministry will be engaging Microsoft and other companies as well as consulting counterparts to learn as much as possible from the incident and its aftermath.

"It is best to stay humble and absorb as many lessons as we can, to strengthen our own digital resilience."

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Top photos from Josephine Teo/Facebook, Wikipedia and Canva