Opening Remarks by Mr. Victor Lam, JP, Deputy Government Chief Information Officer, at the “10th InfoSecurity Summit 2018 Hong Kong”

Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen,

Good morning! It gives me great pleasure to join today’s InfoSecurity Summit 2018 Hong Kong. Today’s event marks the 10th anniversary of the summit, which provides an excellent opportunity for industry leaders, experts and professionals to build a long-lasting relationship to exchange insights, experience and knowledge of the cyber security landscape, technology deployment strategy and corporate risk management.

The theme of this year’s summit is “New Threats, New Mindset, New Approach to Defence”. As technological change accelerates, various industries are adopting innovative and emerging technologies to create a whole new economy as well as countless business opportunities. In fact, these technologies are disrupting traditional industrial processes, like adopting artificial intelligence with big data analytics to empower forecasting and decision making; applying mobile technology with social media platforms to bridge customer gaps; and using cloud services to enable agile IT deployment. In fact, innovation and technology has already become an integral part of our daily lives. The Government is committed to applying innovative technologies in transforming Hong Kong into a smarter city. Since 2016, the Government has made significant investments to boost innovation and technology, including a total of $28 billion allocated in the last term of our Government. In this year’s Budget Speech, the Financial Secretary has also set aside an additional $50 billion to accelerate innovation and technology development in Hong Kong.

While cutting-edge technologies bring forth many opportunities for value creation, they also introduce new security risks which we might not have come across before. In the press conference of the Hong Kong Computer Emergency Response Team Coordination Centre (HKCERT) earlier this year which charted out our information security outlook in 2018, it was forecast that the attacks on Internet of Things (IoT) and mobile payment apps would be on the rise this year, due to the growing use of Internet-enabled devices and mobile payment services. New technologies and applications pose new risks. Risk management becomes much more complex than ever with new risk parameters introduced. We need to identify an efficient approach to manage the risks involved and develop effective ways to handle them to ensure business continuity.

Firstly, cyber attacks have become increasingly sophisticated and complex. It would no longer be a task that can be taken up solely by individual organisations or even economies. Collective wisdom and a proactive approach would be indispensable to address such attacks. Information sharing and collaboration among various stakeholders has become a prerequisite of effective cyber security protection. Hence, one of the vital factors for an economy to defend against organised attacks is international cooperation. The Government of Hong Kong has established GovCERT.HK which is a Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) responsible for coordinating incident responses within the Government. Our GovCERT.HK also collaborates with the CERT community globally in sharing threat intelligence and incident information. Besides, we participate in the activities organised by the Asia Pacific Computer Emergency Response Team (APCERT), such as the international incident response drill, which helps develop member economies’ response capability further.

Community sharing would be another critical factor to enhance Hong Kong’s overall defence capability against cyber threats. It is important to forge closer ties to share and collaborate within the Hong Kong community. Hence, the Government promotes territory-wide cyber threat information exchange, and is implementing a pilot partnership programme for cyber security information sharing and collaboration. The programme aims to promote trusted partnership of local stakeholders across sectors to share information and analysis on cyber security risks and vulnerabilities. It also aims to provide actionable insights for the stakeholders and the general public, thus enabling them to take proactive and timely measures to address imminent security threats. Here I would like to appeal to the local cyber security stakeholders to stay tuned for our invitation and take an active part in this partnership programme, so as to join hands to enhance the overall capability of our society to tackle cyber attacks.

Finally, cyber security awareness is crucial contributor to ensure an enterprise to operate safely and efficiently. It is therefore of paramount importance for enterprises to understand their own defence capabilities and implement suitable technology solutions to safeguard sensitive data, in particular personal data, on corporate networks and computers. Moreover, security audit should be conducted regularly to identify potential threat and ensure the security measures are effectively implemented. To enhance the competitiveness of our industry, the Government launched a $500 million Technology Voucher Programme in November 2016 on a pilot basis to subsidise local companies in using technological services and solutions, including those related to cyber security. Local firms are encouraged to apply funding in strengthening their defence against cyber attacks.

In summary, cyber attacks are no longer isolated issues and cyber threats are borderless and ever-evolving. To better prepare for these, we have been proactively participating in international collaboration and enhancing our defensive measures against imminent cyber security threats. We will also actively facilitate exchange of cyber security information among all stakeholders to enhance the cyber security capability and resilience of the community as a whole. I wish all of you a fruitful learning and sharing experience at this summit. Thank you.

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