The Infocomm Media Development Authority ( IMDA ) released a list of advisory guidelines on Tuesday ( Feb 25 ) to reduce instances of disruptions to cloud services and data centers.  ,
These recommendations may help cloud service providers and data centers employ threat assessment measures, business impact analysis, business continuity preparing, and security protocols by drawing on existing global and industry standards.  ,
They also aim to address challenges to sky services and data centres, such as issues in professional settings, natural hazards like fires, water leaks and cooling systems, as well as cyberattacks.  ,
In October 2023,  , DBS and Citibank were hit by an interruption lasting more than 12 days. Customers were unable to use PayLah!, PayLah!, or the banks ‘ softwares for online banking. and Give Today. ATM companies were even down at various locations.
A blaze broke out at the Digital Realty data center in Loyang in September last year, causing problems for tech firms like Lazada, Bytedance, and Alibaba Cloud.
Problems to such services can lead to major inconveniences and affected effect Singapore’s market, IMDA said.  ,
The country’s digital economy , contributed 17.7 per cent to the country’s gross domestic product ( GDP ) in 2023, overtaking the finance and insurance sector.  ,
” With the right practices, quite destructive occurrences can be minimised, and services may be restored immediately when a disturbance occurs”, said the expert.  ,
Recommendations FOR Sky Solutions AND DATA CENTRES ,
The actions that are suggested for cloud service providers, among others, may encourage them to utilize, among other things, appropriate data governance and disaster recovery plans.  ,
The guidelines will focus on seven categories of measures: Cloud management, sky network security, cloud operations control, cloud services management, cloud service customer access, tenancy and customer isolation, and cloud resilience.  ,
The new recommendations will provide a framework for data centers to implement techniques that can help assure business stability and reduce service problems.  ,
According to IMDA,” this includes instructions on implementing company continuity policies, controls, and processes, as well as continually reviewing and improving them,” adding that measures may also tackle cybersecurity risks in data centers.  ,
IMPROVING SINGAPORE’S DIGITAL SECURITY ,
These guidelines provide an “additional step” to improve the resilience and security of cloud services, according to IMDA, adding that they would also complement the upcoming new Digital Infrastructure Act ( DIA ).  ,
As scientific developments progress, the rules introduced will also be updated.  ,
The organization stated that” a whole-of-ecosystem approach is required to ensure that our society and economy continue to benefit from digitalization while being prepared for online outages.”