Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen inaugurates new DIS commands to consolidate cyber capabilities

Minister for Defence Ng Eng Hen spoke at the inauguration of two new commands under the Singapore Armed Forces' fourth service, the Digital and Intelligence Service (DIS).

Ng was speaking at DIS’s Hillview Camp to commemorate the opening of the Defence Cyber Command (DCCOM) and the SAF C4 and Digitalisation Command.

Alarming increase

Ng said the two new commands were announced earlier during the Ministry of Defence’s 2025 Committee of Supply debate.

He told parliament that Singapore had seen “an alarming increase in the frequency, sophistication, scale of cyber threats”.

“ Cyber threat actors have refined their methods and used advanced techniques. They also use AI, zero-day exploits, and ransomware to target critical infrastructure in healthcare, energy, and government sectors.”

The SAF “must set up to this challenge” to protect Singapore’s digital backbone and critical IT infrastructure.

For example, he noted the 2017 breach in portals used by NSmen and staff, as well as the recent ransomware attack against the HomeTeamNS servers.

Attackers could now exploit vulnerabilities faster than before, with an attack that might have taken two months to develop in 2018 possibly being crafted in mere days today.

However, the SAF can also make use of digital technologies to help in its mission, and it has already done so.

"The DIS’s job is to guide the SAF in applying the right tools for the appropriate task," he said.

Command structure

The two new command’s purposes were explained by DIS staff.

Rear Admiral Yong Wei Hsiung, chief of staff - Digital and Intelligence Staff and head of DIS Operations, explained that neither command was entirely new, but both consolidated the efforts done in other parts of the SAF.

Yong explained that most of the functions of the two new commands were already pre-existing but were “a bit disparate”, lacking unity of command and clarity of mission.

The DCCOM was one such example, where cyber security capabilities were contained in “different pockets” but were now being placed together.

Some aspects of DCCOM were existing entities transferred to the new command, such as the Cyber Defence Group and the Cyber Defence Test and Evaluation Centre.

Others were new groups, such as the Cyber Protection Group (CPG) and the Cyber Threat Intelligence Group (CTG).

Different missions

The CPG’s mission would contribute towards national cyber defence and would cooperate with other agencies, such as the Cyber Security Agency of Singapore (CSA), to strengthen Singapore's digital defences, with CTG providing “early warning” for such threats as well as cyber threat intelligence assessments.

The SAFC4DC would consolidate software and hardware capabilities under a single command, allowing the acceleration of efforts to integrate the SAF’s digital technology stack.

The command would take in the Digital Ops-Tech Centre, comprising in-house engineering and product development capabilities, along with three other groups such as the C4 Operations Group, the Operations Support IT Group, and the SAF Artificial Intelligence Centre.

The SAF AI Centre was established in 2024, to catalyse AI innovations, and to accelerate AI adoption within the SAF, as well as to grow organic AI expertise, in areas such as computer vision and generative AI.

The ultimate goal of the SAF AI Centre was to ensure that AI employed in the SAF would be “safe, reliable, and robust”, according to Military Expert 6 Shawn Kan, head of the SAF AI Centre.

This meant AI would be safe for the personnel and assets around them, reliable enough to provide consistent outputs with minimal unintended bias, and robust enough to operate in unforeseen circumstances.

Service to the nation

Ng also noted NSmen’s participation in DIS as part of their national service.

There were about 500 NSmen deployed across both commands in a range of areas, such as software engineering, AI, cloud infrastructure and engineering appointments.

Some even participated in multinational cybersecurity exercises such as Exercise Locked Shields, a NATO cybersecurity exercise in 2024.

Yong, responding to a question from Mothership, said there were many roles for NSmen in both digital and cyber areas, as well as in DIS’s intelligence functions.

But this extended beyond just full-time NSMen, and under NS’s Expertise-Based Deployment, private sector expertise flowed into the SAF through NSMen working in relevant parts of the private sector, with Yong noting that in the private sector, development of cyber capabilities was growing rapidly.

He gave the example of NSMen who were either working towards or had attained their Ph.D.s in relevant fields such as AI, whose knowledge helped supplement SAF’s capabilities.

Cutting edge

That fast moving private sector was referenced by Ng in his closing portions of his speech.

He acknowledged the fast-moving IT cycle and that the SAF need to gain access to “cutting-edge solutions and operational insights”.

The SAF was working with several private sector organisations to facilitate that, such as Oracle and Dragos, to build capability or jointly develop advanced cybersecurity capabilities.

There were just two of several similar tie-ups.

Ng said that the inauguration of the two new commands was a “positive and important step for the DIS and SAF”, and the appointed leaders of the commands recognised the heavy responsibility that Singaporeans had placed on them.

Top image via Mothership