NUS-IT-Report-Card-2021_PDF-3(FromCD)

Advanced and Secure Infrastructure

5.

Enhancing cyber resiliency In April 2021, NUS IT conducted the first Executive Cybersecurity Tabletop Exercise where top leadership in NUS participated in. The objective of the exercise were to rehearse responses in the event of a cyber-incident. Using the narrative of a massive ransomware attack affecting the entire University, participants were led through a series of escalating scenarios, and we solicited their responses and jointly derived action plans. Overall, the team exhibited a proactive approach in communications and impact analysis, and demonstrated a tight team-based collaboration.

NUS’ cybersecurity posture BitSight is the leading third-party cybersecurity benchmarking service that assesses an organisation’s cybersecurity posture from an unbiased external view. Its methodology involves measuring a host of security metrics and assigning scores based on a proprietary algorithm, and it is widely used by local government agencies. NUS reached an all-time high score of 700 in Sep 2021, compared to the education industry average of 640. NUS was also leading the pack when benchmarked against top local and global universities. This achievement stemmed from prioritising cybersecurity as a foundation principle, aligning our cybersecurity framework with the well-known industry standard by US NIST.