The Asia Pacific Computer Emergency Response Team (APCERT) has successfully completed its annual drill to test the response capability of leading Computer Security Incident Response Teams (CSIRT) from the Asia Pacific economies on 16th March 2016. For the fifth time, APCERT involved the participation of members from the Organisation of the Islamic Cooperation – Computer Emergency Response Team (OIC-CERT) in this annual drill.

        The theme of the APCERT Drill 2016 was “An Evolving Cyber Threat and Financial Fraud”. The exercise reflects real incidents and problems that exist on the Internet. The scenario, for this year, simulated a contemporary cyber threat with financial motivation that targets to defraud individual and financial institutions.

        Throughout the exercise, the participating teams activated and tested their incident handling arrangements. This drill included the need to interact both locally an internationally, with CSIRTs/CERTs and victim organisations, for the coordinated suspension of malicious infrastructure, analysis of malicious code, as well as notification and assistance to affected entities. This incident response exercise, which was coordinated across many economies, reflects the collaboration amongst the economies and validates the enhanced communication protocols, technical capabilities and quality of incident responses that APCERT fosters in assuring Internet security and safety.

        26 CSIRT teams from 20 economies (Australia, Bangladesh, Brunei Darussalam, People's Republic of China, Chinese Taipei, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Lao People's Democratic Republic, Macao, Malaysia, Mongolia, Myanmar, New Zealand, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam) of the APCERT participated in the drill. From the external parties, CSIRT teams from 7 economies (Egypt, Côte d'Ivoire, Morocco, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan and Tunisia) of the OIC-CERT participated.