KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 22 — Malaysia will launch Southeast Asia’s first 5G Cybersecurity Test Lab – a joint effort by national cybersecurity specialist agency, CyberSecurity Malaysia (CSM), Huawei Technologies (M) Sdn Bhd and Celcom Axiata Bhd.

Communications and Multimedia Minister Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah said the test lab will be a model for end-to-end cybersecurity, covering a number of scenarios and offering services inclusive of mobile applications and hardware evaluation.

"It will cover a comprehensive 5G test bed ecosystem comprising technologies such as 5G radio access network (RAN), Edge network and also cloud application.

"The test lab will also carry test cases including Internet of Things (IoT) security, telecommunications security and look at improving readiness in responding to 5G-related cyber-attacks,” he said in a virtual speech at a forum hosted by Huawei in conjunction with the Mobile World Congress 2021 (MWC21) in Shanghai.

Saifuddin said when it comes to the Internet, connectivity, data, capacity building, development, e-business, and cybersecurity, the Malaysian government is looking at it from a holistic approach and it comes out from a national platform called the National Digital Agenda and the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) council chaired by Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin.

"It is not the best but I think this is the way forward, as some of you might be familiar with the Malaysian version of the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC),” said Saifuddin.

He said the MSC was mooted 25 years ago, and now the government is looking at a somewhat new version of MSC.

"It could later be announced as MSC 2.0, but more importantly, we have a national platform, and it refers to the National Digital and 4IR council,” he said.

"We are hoping that we can consolidate our work better and also roll out all of our activities in the best of ways,” said Saifuddin. — Bernama