PETALING JAYA: Airports are part of the critical national infrastructure and procedures must be in place to prevent system disruptions, says Cybersecurity Malaysia\u2019s responsive services division senior vice-president Dr Aswami Fadillah Mohd Ariffin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhen you deploy any system, you need to understand the risk, then manage it accordingly by having a policy combined with technical safeguards, \u201d he said, adding an internal investigation was needed to figure out the cause of the problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He said the glitch could be due to a number of reasons, from the system configuration not being up to date to pre-existing cybervulnerabilities or upgrading errors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He warned that even if the disruption was not due to a cyberattack, it put the system in a vulnerable situation which could open it up to an attack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cybersecurity company LGMS director Fong Choong Fook said it was difficult to tell whether the disruption was a system update gone haywire or actual malicious activity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s hard to say. If there\u2019s a ransomware message on the screen, then it\u2019s easier to tell. If it\u2019s just downtime, there could be many factors, \u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fong, however, noted that such disruptions could also happen without system updates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere are a lot of possibilities: poor maintenance, hardware failure, error in patching, software glitches, negligence in operation or, worse, cyberattacks, \u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are of course fail-safe methods that the airports could use, but that would result in a drop in efficiency, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fong added that prevention and proactive drills were crucial when large organisations update their systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cInformation system disruptions are not just statistics; they become business cases and will cost us financially.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Friday, 23 Aug 2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n