APCERT conducts cyber drill on evolving threat and financial fraud

The Asia Pacific Computer Emergency Response Team (APCERT) has successfully completed its annual drill to test the response capability of leading Computer Security Incident Response Teams (CSIRT) from the Asia Pacific economies. For the fifth time, APCERT involved the participation of members from the Organisation of the Islamic Cooperation – Computer Emergency Response Team (OIC-CERT) in this annual drill.

The theme of the APCERT Drill 2016 was ‘An Evolving Cyber Threat and Financial Fraud’. The exercise reflects real incidents and problems that exist on the internet. The scenario, for this year, simulated a contemporary cyber threat with financial motivation that targets to defraud individual and financial institutions.

Throughout the exercise, the participating teams activated and tested their incident handling arrangements. This drill included the need to interact both locally and internationally, with CSIRTs/CERTs and victim organisations, for the coordinated suspension of malicious infrastructure, analysis of malicious code, as well as notification and assistance to affected entities. This incident response exercise, which was coordinated across many economies, reflects the collaboration amongst the economies and validates the enhanced communication protocols, technical capabilities and quality of incident responses that APCERT fosters in assuring Internet security and safety.

26 CSIRT teams from 20 economies (Australia, Bangladesh, Brunei Darussalam, People’s Republic of China, Chinese Taipei, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Macao, Malaysia, Mongolia, Myanmar, New Zealand, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam) of the APCERT participated in the drill. From the external parties, CSIRT teams from six economies (Egypt, Morocco, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan and Tunisia) of the OIC-CERT participated.

Sri Lanka Computer Emergency Readiness Team | Coordination Centre (Sri Lanka CERT|CC) is the single trusted source of advice about the latest threats and vulnerabilities affecting computer systems and networks, and a source of expertise to assist the nation and member organisations, in responding to and recovering from cyber attacks. It was set up in June 2006, in collaboration with the Information and Communication Technology Agency (ICTA) of Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka CERT|CC successfully took part in 2016 edition of the APCERT Cyber Security Drill as a drill organising/design committee member, drill coordination, control member and also as a player.