S'pore Has To Raise Its Vigilance Given Global Conflicts: Chan Chun Sing

Threats have moved beyond terrorism and extend into areas like cyberspace, he says

- Ng Wei Kai

Singapore has to raise its vigilance in various places given the conflicts around the world, as it is unclear if it could become "collateral in other people's fight", said Defence Minister Chan Chun Sing.

He noted that the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) is dealing with a range of threats and challenges daily across all four of its services.

"Today, we are not at war in the conventional sense, neither are we at peace in the conventional sense," he told reporters in an interview on June 25.

"We are always operating somewhere in between, with different gradations. And that's what keeps us on our toes."

Mr Chan cited how the Digital and Intelligence Service (DIS) and other government agencies deal with thousands of attempts to penetrate Singapore's cyber systems every day, without naming those behind these attacks.

"Sometimes it could be just people fooling around, but often, I think people are doing this very intentionally and probably with malicious intent," he said.

It is a round-the-clock operation to protect Singapore's cyber domain, he added, noting that a breach could mean not just a hit to the country's reputation or the loss of some classified information, but real consequences for its power grid and financial and water systems.

There are also constant efforts to secure Singapore's airspace and territorial waters.

Mr Chan said the air force responds to hundreds of cases every year, some requiring air defence assets to be scrambled to verify unknown threats.

"For the navy, it is the same thing," said Mr Chan, who was chief of army before entering politics.

"The number of ships that sail through the narrow Singapore Strait, the number of boardings that we have to (do to) check and verify to make sure that the strait remains safe from threat actors, that goes into the hundreds as well and, in fact, sometimes the thousands."