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The Australian Cyber Security Centre joined teams from 21 other countries to take part in the annual APCERT Drill, designed to improve regional responses to emerging cyber security threats.
This year's APCERT (Asia Pacific Computer Emergency Response Team) Drill has come to a close, following in depth capability testing of leading Computer Security Incident Response Teams (CSIRT) from a number of Asia-Pacific countries.
The CSIRT teams conducted exercises based upon this year’s theme: “Supply Chain Attack Through Spear-Phishing - Beware of Working from Home”.
The exercises tested the capabilities of the response teams to real life threats faced by organisations, arising from supply chain threats from spear phishing.
The drill tested the participants' ability to work together, suspend malicious infrastructure, analyse code, as well as testing how teams notify and support impacted organisations.
A total of 25 CSIRTs took part in the drill, representing 19 countries within APCERT. The participants include Australia, Bhutan, Brunei Darussalam, People's Republic of China, Chinese Taipei, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Lao People's Democratic Republic, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Tonga, and Vietnam. Kazakhstan and Tunisia also took part in the drill.
APCERT was created to enable counties to work together and information share regarding emerging cyber threats. Currently, there are 32 CSIRTs representing 23 economies.
Despite regional cooperation within the APCERT program, cyber co-operation in the Asia-Pacific region was dealt a blow recently with alleged Chinese hacking.
The Chinese state-sponsored attacks on Microsoft Exchange prompted global condemnation.
“In consultation with our partners, the Australian government has determined that China's Ministry of State Security exploited vulnerabilities in the Microsoft Exchange software to affect thousands of computers and networks worldwide, including in Australia," a statement from the Australian government read last month.
"These actions have undermined international stability and security by opening the door to a range of other actors, including cyber criminals, who continue to exploit this vulnerability for illicit gain.”
[Related: ‘Ethical hackers’ take part in bug bounty program]