The Cyber Security Agency of Singapore (CSA) and the Association of Trade & Commerce (Singapore) [ATC] have launched a new SME Cybersecurity Excellence Award to recognise small and medium enterprises in Singapore that are committed to cybersecurity.
The SME Cybersecurity Excellence Award is developed in partnership with ATC, which manages the long-running Singapore SME 500 Awards. For businesses that have gone digital, cybersecurity is a foundational and fundamental component of their business operations.
Businesses that wish to apply for the SME Cybersecurity Excellence Award must fulfil one additional criterion: they must have attained the Cyber Essentials mark. The SME Cybersecurity Excellence Award will be open for applications by SMEs in Singapore from today.
The announcement of the SME Cybersecurity Award follows the launch of the CSA’s Cyber Essentials and Cyber Trust in March 2022 to nudge businesses to place cybersecurity in the centre of their operations. To date, more than 60 companies have applied for the two trust marks, out of which 31 and 12 companies have attained Cyber Essentials and Cyber Trust, respectively.
Cybersecurity is not just for large enterprises – smaller enterprises are also vulnerable to cyber-attacks as they may lack the resources and cyber defences of larger enterprises. One of the early adopters of the Cyber Essentials mark is CyberSafe Pte Ltd. “The Cyber Essentials and Cyber Trust certification marks allow us to communicate to our clients and stakeholders our emphasis in keeping their systems and data safe,” says Dave Gurbani, Chief Executive Officer, CyberSafe.
“With the increase in supply chain-related attacks, more organisations are requiring their vendors to re-qualify on risk assessments. CSA certification marks are great benchmarks to illustrate vendor compliance within the supply chain.
“Apart from an increase in revenue and consumer confidence, CyberSafe had primarily taken up Cyber Essentials certification to serve as a role-model to everyday SMEs in the market on the value-add that these CSA certification marks will bring.”
To further encourage take-up of the Cyber Essentials and Cyber Trust, CSA is progressively curating and building up a directory of solutions and service providers that will facilitate prospective companies’ application for either of the trust marks. This online directory will match businesses with providers that meet their needs.
It will include a listing of attributes such as the providers’ target customer profile, track record, or whether the providers themselves are certified under the Cyber Essentials or Cyber Trust marks. This online directory will be available on the CSA website from today.
CSA has also recognised 6 key industry partners 3 for their contributions to the SG Cyber Safe partnership programme. The partnership programme brings together private sector organisations and CSA to work hand in-hand to raise cybersecurity awareness and encourage adoption of good cybersecurity practices by members of the public and enterprises.
One of these partners is the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce (SCCCI), who has been very active in working with CSA to drive cybersecurity awareness amongst its members. SCCCI also facilitated workshops for its members to provide CSA with feedback, enabling CSA to finetune its cybersecurity initiatives for enterprises.
In addition to acknowledging key industry partners, CSA also acknowledged the contributions of the key certification bodies that had made strong contributions to the Cyber Essentials and Cyber Trust certification scheme.
