SINGAPORE: While naming a specific country linked to cyber threat group UNC3886 is not in Singapore’s interest at this point in time, the attack was still serious enough for the government to let the public know about the group, said Coordinating Minister for National Security and Minister for Home Affairs K Shanmugam on Friday (Aug 1).

Speaking to reporters on the side of the Cyber Security Agency of Singapore’s (CSA) Exercise Cyber Star, the national cybersecurity crisis management exercise, Mr Shanmugam said that when it comes to naming any country responsible for a cyber attack, “we always think about it very carefully”.

Responding to a question from CNA on reports tying the group to China, Mr Shanmugam said: “Media coverage (and) industry experts all attribute UNC3886 to some country … Government does not comment on this.

“We release information that we assess is in the public interest. Naming a specific country is not in our interest at this point in time.”

UNC3886 has been described by Google-owned cybersecurity firm Mandiant as a "China-nexus espionage group" that has targeted prominent strategic organisations on a global scale.

Mr Shanmugam had announced on Jul 18 that Singapore is actively dealing with a "highly sophisticated threat actor" that is attacking critical infrastructure, identifying the entity as UNC3886 without disclosing if it was a state-linked actor.

He said the threat actor poses a serious danger to Singapore and could undermine the country's national security, and added that it was not in Singapore's security interests to disclose further details of the attack then.

When asked the following day about UNC3886's alleged links to China and possible retaliation for naming them, Mr Shanmugam, who is also Home Affairs Minister, said this was "speculative".

"Who they are linked to and how they operate is not something I want to go into," he said.

Responding to media reports in a Jul 19 Facebook post, the Chinese embassy in Singapore expressed its "strong dissatisfaction" at the claims linking the coun...