Singapore's government is pushing for greater international cooperation to fight cyber criminals, following last year's devastating data breach of Optus, a telecommunications company it's owned since 2001.
In September last year, ransom threats were made against Optus after around 10 million customers in Australia had their data stolen, although the hacker later appeared to drop the demand and apologise to those whose records had already been released.
The Singaporean-owned Optus, which is Australia's second largest telecommunications provider, was severely criticised by the federal government for its handling of the crisis that it claimed was the result of a "sophisticated" attack.
Earlier this year, the Albanese government announced a new national cyber office – led by a new coordinator for cyber security – would be established under the Home Affairs Department in the aftermath of the Optus and Medibank hacks.
Without specifically mentioning the Optus data breach, Singapore's visiting Minister for Communications and Information Josephine Teo has warned that ransomware gangs are able to operate across various jurisdictions.
"What happens when a ransomware attack happens is that there is a need to stop the payment to the ransomware actor," Ms Teo told the Australian Strategic Policy Institute's Sydney Dialogue on Wednesday.
"The ransomware actors work across different jurisdictions — they're actually taking advantage of the failure of interoperability to get away.
"So, the rules and regulations that would allow one jurisdiction to stop the payment to the ransomware actor doesn't work across another jurisdiction."
Ms Teo, who also serves as Singapore's Second Minister for Home Affairs, has praised the work of the US-led Counter Ransomware Initiative to improve interoperability between its 36 member nations — including Australia.
"The actors in our own jurisdiction respond to our own laws, regulations, policies – we have to be willing to share notes with each other – what's working in our respective jurisdictions and then not be shy about fostering higher norms as we go along," she said.
"The Counter Ransomware Initiative now says: shall we find a way in which notifications can be implemented in each of the member states that are participating in this initiative so that we can all help each other to stop payment of ransom to these actors."
Optus has denied a ransom was paid to those behind the data hack, and its CEO Kelly Bayer Rosmarin initially rejected a company insider's claim to the ABC that the breach occurred partly because of human error.
