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

        The theme of this year’s APCERT Drill is “Data Breach via Malware on IoT”. This exercise reflects real incidents and issues that exist on the Internet. The scenario, for this year, simulated an attack on the medical sector where the initial compromised was followed with exfiltration of data and infection of IoT devices within the medical sector.

        Throughout the exercise, the participating teams activated and tested their incident handling arrangements. This drill included the need for the teams to interact locally and internationally, with CSIRTs/CERTs and targeted organizations, for 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 in mitigating cyber threats and validates the enhanced communication protocols, technical capabilities and quality of incident responses that APCERT fosters in assuring Internet security and safety. 

        27 CSIRT teams from 20 economies of APCERT (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) participated in the drill. From the external parties, CSIRT teams from 5 economies (Egypt, Morocco, Nigeria, Oman, and Pakistan) of the OIC-CERT participated.