S'pore cyber attack may be state-linked

The biggest ever cyber attack to hit Singapore was carried out by highly sophisticated hackers typically linked to foreign governments, a cabinet minister said yesterday, but did not give names.

Hackers broke into a government database and stole the health records of 1.5 million Singaporeans, including Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong who was specifically targeted in the "unprecedented" hack, the government has said.

"We have done a detailed analysis of this attack and have determined that it is the work of an advanced persistent threat (APT) group," Minister for Communications and Information S. Iswaran said yesterday.

"This refers to a class of sophisticated cyber attackers typically state-linked who conduct extended, carefully planned cyber campaigns to steal information or disrupt operations," he told parliament, which discussed the issue.

Iswaran said the APT group "was persistent in its efforts to penetrate and anchor itself on the network, bypass the security measures and illegally access and exfiltrate data".

While the attack fitted the profile of "certain known APT groups", Iswaran said he would not publicly give any names for reasons of national security.