ISKANDAR PUTERI, July 4 — The Johor government has spent RM294,000 on cybersecurity and securing the state’s database management systems, said state Education, Human Resource, Science and Technology Committee chairman Aminolhuda Hassan.
He said the amount included payment for security software such as various firewalls, intrusion detection systems, and intrusion prevention systems to guard against external threats.
“In order to ensure the security of information and access control to a more secure system, the state government has formulated the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Version 2.0 Policy in November 2017 as an improvement over the previous security policy,” said Aminolhuda.
He was answering Md Ysahrudin Kusni (PH-Bukit Naning) who asked about the state government’s efforts to secure its database at the Johor Legislative Assembly in Kota Iskandar here today.
Aminolhuda, who is also the Parit Yaani assemblyman, explained that with the implementation of the ICT Version 2.0 Policy, all state-owned ICT-related matters must comply with prescribed policies and be approved by the respective department’s IT manager.
“Confidential or classified data can only be accessed by responsible officers, while the sharing of data in the open concept is the right of the state government,” he said.
Aminolhuda also added that the state government has a Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) that has been active since 2010.
“The team is responsible for handling security incidents at ICT agencies under the state government,” he said.
The current state government data centre, located in the Datuk Jaafar Muhammad Building in Kota Iskandar, houses all server systems since the transfer of the state administrative centre from the Sultan Ibrahim Building at Bukit Timbalan in Johor Baru to Kota Iskandar in 2009.
The previous data centre in Bukit Timbalan is now a disaster recovery centre which keeps a backup system in the event of malfunction or data loss in the data centre in Kota Iskandar.
