Recently our Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, called for the need to have cybersecurity experts to work closely with the authorities in enhancing national resilience.

National resilience is a big word that refers to a nation’s ability to cope with any adversities. While the concept of resilience itself can be applied to many situations, one of the elements that is frequently linked to national resilience is digital resilience.

This is a consequence of living in a highly digitalised environment, where a lack of digital skills and knowledge can leave us trailing behind in the race to compete with other countries.

Having addressed the urgency of national resilience, the next interesting concept is digital resilience — the ability of a government to withstand, adapt to, and recover from cyber threats, data breaches, and other technological disruptions.

Digital resilience is crucial in the current world full of rapid digital transformation where technologies are used to improvise, if not elevate, the economy and society. With the heavy usage of digital technologies, cyber threats have become inevitable as people are becoming increasingly advanced in navigating the interconnected digital space.

Being a digitally resilient government is important as cybersecurity threats can disrupt public services, disrupt national security, and threaten to economic stability. Digital resilience is also closely tied to having robust digital infrastructure to ensure the efficient and secure operation of public services. Hence, the importance of data protection and privacy in public trust could be enhanced.

The challenges

Nonetheless, digital resilience comes with a number of challenges.

For example, combating cybersecurity threats at the national level is a key government priority to safeguard its systems from attacks by hackers and other malicious intruders.

The next challenge is to ensure that there is lesser digital divide among those who have access to national IT infrastructure and those who do not, especially between the urban and rural areas.

Protecting government legacy systems which are already outdated can be very costly as they may not be compatible with the latest systems, yet they still have the data that the government requires.

Finally, managing national data security in a global landscape could be difficult as the data is flowing freely from all over the world.

Adopting a holistic approach

All of these require a holistic approach from many parties to overcome or lessen the impact to the nation.

Some strategies to enhance government digital resilience include having a cybersecurity framework encompassing policies and standards that need to be implemented in all government units and departments.

Next is turning to cloud computing and data backup to ensure public services continuity to preserve the image of the government.

The move to having public-private partnership for cybersecurity solutions is going to assist the government in exploiting knowledge and experts to better manage the cybersecurity threats.

Integrating AI and automation for threats and detection is also another solution that the government can look into and, finally, planning for capacity building to train public servants on cybersecurity best practices would ensure that the government human capital is digitally resilient.

Promoting digital resilience

A few examples of government initiatives could be cited to promote the importance of digital resilience in the government.

Singapore, for example, has focused on the Singapore Smart Nation Initiative which includes putting investments into cybersecurity and digital transformation efforts.

Estonia has implemented the Estonia e-Government System, which is a blockchain-based security system for public services.

And our country has taken bold steps in coming up with the Malaysia National Cyber Security Strategy which focuses on our digital infrastructure.

These are just a few initiatives that show the importance of digital resilience, especially in public services.

Encouraging cyber hygiene

Now, having known the challenges and strategies that the government has planned to build government digital resilience, what can we do as citizens?

We could promote cyber hygiene, which means the practices and procedures that we use to maintain the health and security of all our digital systems, networks, devices and data, whether at work or in the home.

We could strengthen the collaboration between citizens and government in reporting security issues so that faster response could be initiated.

Last, but not least, we could always organise awareness campaigns on digital security threats among the public to educate the people about the implications. Even though the participation of citizens in building digital resilience is limited, the future will more secure with the involvement of all stakeholders.

In short, building a nation that is digitally resilient does not happen overnight. Immense challenges have to be overcome and strategies need to be crafted to manoeuvre the bumpy road ahead. Continuous digital innovation and stronger cybersecurity policies are needed to achieve this vision as a whole-of-government approach.

Let’s build government digital resilience, and secure the future for our next generations.

-- BERNAMA

Prof Dr Noor Ismawati Jaafar (isma_jaafar@um.edu.my) is a Professor at the Department of Decision Science, Faculty of Business and Economics, Universiti Malaya.