KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 12 — The government has launched the Malaysia Cyber Security Strategy (MCSS) 2020-2024 with an allocation of RM1.8 billion to step up national cyber security preparedness.

Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said the Communications and Multimedia Ministry (KKMM) and the National Cyber Security Agency (NACSA) would be tasked with formulating, implementing, monitoring and coordinating the medium term action plan.

The prime minister said the strategy was drafted based on five pillars encompassing 12 strategies, 35 actions plans and 113 programmes as the thrust of the cyber security mechanism is to face any forms of cyber attacks.

"The first pillar, enhances the management of national governance and cyber security by improving the country’s critical information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure as well as raising the ability to deal with cyber security issues effectively.

"In this regard, the National Cyber Security Committee has been established and I have appointed Senior Minister (Security Cluster) Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob as chairman to steer the committee,” he said in his opening speech of the MCSS 2020-2024 at Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre (KLCC) today.

The Prime Minister’s speech was read by Communications and Multimedia Minister Datuk Seri Saifuddin Abdullah. 

Also present were KKMM secretary-general Datuk Suriani Ahmad and National Security Council (Strategic Security) National Security deputy director-general, Datuk Khairul Shahril Idrus.

The prime minister said the second pillar is to strengthen the enforcement of existing cyber security laws by reviewing related legislation as well as formulating laws on cyber security.

He said the third pillar is empowering innovation and world standard technology in cyber security and the fourth is to improve development capacity as well as cyber security skilled manpower.

"The fifth is to enhance international cooperation by activating regional and international cooperation to protect national cyber space,” he said.

Muhyiddin stressed that national cyber security would continue to be a priority in national defence and security agenda.

Prime Minister also described initiatives in form of active cyber defence as timely especially following the increasing number of cyber crimes now during the Covid-19 pandemic.

He said during the movement control order, the National Cyber Control and Command Centre (NC4) had succeeded in detecting and containing several cyber attacks on certain agencies.

"Cyber attacks cover ‘Advance Persistent Threat’ (APT) which is intruding the websites of certain agencies apart from Ransomware and Zero-Day cyber attacks,” he said.

The prime minister also assured that there are elements of cyber security put in place in all government-led digital initiatives, to ease the worries of all investors with regards to safety concerns.

Muhyiddin also pointed out that international cooperation is crucial in overcoming cyber security issues as no country can deal with these issues alone.

"Malaysia has also been supportive of cyber safety initiatives on both the regional and international platforms that have led to norm setting for cyber security in tandem with the Association of South-East Asian Nations (Asean), Asean Regional Forum (ARF), United Nations (UN), Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) and the Commonwealth.

"We look forward to exploring further bilateral and multilateral relationships together,” he said. — Bernama