Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), businesses with less than 200 employees, are the backbone of Singapore's economy. They represent 99% of all businesses (approximately 290,000 businesses) and employ around 71% of the working population. They also account for roughly half of the country's GDP and play a key role in adding value to all sectors of the economy1.
The COVID-19 pandemic forced SMEs to rethink their digital strategy and accelerated digital adoption. Businesses, of all sizes, had to incorporate business continuity measures such as adapting to cloud services, upgrading their network services, and changing their cyber security posture to reflect remote and flexible working requirements.
The COVID-19 pandemic forced SMEs to rethink their digital strategy and accelerated digital adoption. Businesses, of all sizes, had to incorporate business continuity measures such as adapting to cloud services, upgrading their network services, and changing their cyber security posture to reflect remote and flexible working requirements.
The IMDA estimates that the digital economy is worth S$106 billion or 17.3% of Singapore’s GDP in 2022, up from S$58 billion or 13% of GDP in 2017 (latest figures). The growth and success of digital economy has come on the back of increasing digital adoption, which in turn, contributed to over 200,000 jobs in tech manpower across all the sectors.
To help SMEs overcome their resource constraints and improve their security resilience, the CSA has set up the CISO-as-a-Service (CISOaaS) scheme. This works by providing basic health screening, known as Cyber Essentials, to uncover security gaps through a baseline approach. The starting point encompasses employees and staff, hardware, and software systems, through the protection of data. The aim is to identify the measures needed to safeguard ICT systems and operations from common cyber-attacks which is specific to the individual business.
The next step, known as Cyber Trust, takes a more risk-based approach to prioritise and resolve 'known' vulnerabilities and security gaps uncovered through basic screening. This helps to prepare Singaporean businesses for CSA's certification. The CSA certification is rapidly gaining acceptance as more businesses go through the process. It will likely accelerate further as government agencies mandate more SME certification to support broader interests.
M1 is the only telco certified as a CISOaaS Provider by CSA and sets itself apart from others with the ability to offer core back-end-capabilities around connectivity, security, and productivity products and solutions to provide a turnkey approach. This will help increase the speed of certification without the friction of having to source for and work with multiple vendors. Contact M1 today to understand more on our CISOaaS Packages!