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The hackers’ objective may have been to steal government or research information

Two of Singapore’s government universities, Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and the National University of Singapore (NUS), were hit by sophisticated cyber attacks last month, according to a report released by the Cyber Security Agency of Singapore (CSA).

The breaches were discovered when NTU and NUS ran checks on their IT systems in mid-April. The universities then contacted the CSA to run forensic investigations into the attacks.

CSA said that “both of the attacks were the work of Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) actors.” The attacks were “carefully planned” and may have been carried out to steal government or research information.

CSA added that no student information or data were targetted. Critical university operational systems that run student admissions or examination databases were not affected.

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No further details were provided on the extent of the breach. And investigations are still on-going.

NUS and NTU have since replaced the affected IT workstations and desktops. They have also stepped up measures to bolster their cybersecurity frameworks.

Earlier this year, the Singapore Ministry of Defence also experienced a cyber attack. The personal data of 850 servicemen and staff were stolen from the Ministry of Defence (MINDEF) system, as a result.

However, no classified information was compromised as they are stored on a separate secure system not connected to the internet.
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