The most recent IT safety pointers from the Digitial Coverage Workplace have many civil servants complaining about added inconvenience.
| Photograph Credit score: Reuters
The Hong Kong authorities is barring most civil servants from utilizing common apps corresponding to WhatsApp, WeChat and Google Drive on their work computer systems owing to potential safety dangers.
The most recent IT safety pointers from the Digitial Coverage Workplace have many civil servants complaining about added inconvenience. Authorities staff will nonetheless be allowed to make use of the companies from private units at work and might get exceptions to the ban with approval from a supervisor.
Watch | What’s Hong Kong’s new nationwide safety legislation?
Info expertise consultants mentioned corporations have adopted comparable insurance policies owing to growing dangers of information leaks and cybersecurity challenges.
Solar Dong, Secretary for Innovation, Expertise and Trade, mentioned on a radio programme on Tuesday (October 22, 2024) that the ban is required as hacking is changing into a extra major problem. He mentioned the governments of the US and China have additionally adopted stringent measures for his or her inside pc techniques.
A civil servant surnamed Lee, who requested anonymity as a result of she was not authorised to talk to media, mentioned her workplace usually makes use of cloud storage companies to change massive information with distributors exterior the federal government.
Francis Fong, the honorary president of the Hong Kong Info Expertise Federation, mentioned officers advised him that the coverage goals to stop malware from bypassing its firewall by way of encrypted messages. He added that it might additionally tackle points with information breaches.
Anthony Lai, director of VX Analysis Restricted, a cybersecurity agency based mostly in Hong Kong and Britain, mentioned the federal government’s method is acceptable because of low cybersecurity consciousness amongst some employees and a scarcity of complete inside monitoring techniques.
Earlier this 12 months, information breaches at numerous Hong Kong authorities departments compromised the non-public data of at the least tens of hundreds of individuals and sparked considerations.
Revealed – October 23, 2024 12:23 pm IST
