sector's it processes and staff training carried out. it was also suggested that cybersecurity processes be considered as a key instead of it merely existing as an afterthought. the hearings thus concluded on 14 november 2018. the closing submissions were held on 30 november 2018. proposals to improve cybersecurity were shared, including the "assume breach" mindset in organisations thus taking necessary measures, having the right people and processes to complement those measures. it was also pointed out that administrator passwords are supposed to be 15 characters long, but one had an problematic password of eight characters which was unchanged since 2012. lastly, even if measures were put in place to slow down cyberattacks, it is important to note that the attack was done via an advanced persistent threat (apt). subsequently, the report was submitted to s. iswaran on 31 december 2018 with the public version released on 10 january 2019. release of report on 10 january 2019, the committee of inquiry released a report on the singhealth breach. the report found that staff are inadequately trained in cybersecurity, thus they are unable to stop the attacks. the key staff did not take immediate action to stop the attacks fearing pressure. to make things worse, vulnerabilities in the network and systems are not patched quickly, coupled with the fact that the attackers are well-skilled. as a result, the attackers found it easy to break in. the report did point that if the staff had been adequately trained and vulnerabilities fixed quickly, this attack could have been averted. the report also found that this is the work of an advanced persistent threat group. in the same report, the committee of inquiry made 16 recommendations to boost cybersecurity, separated into priority and additional recommendations. they are: priority: adopting an enhanced security structure and readiness by ihis and public health institutions review online security processes to assess ability to defend and respond to cyberattacks improving staff awareness on cyberattacks perform enhanced security checks, especially on critical information infrastructure (cii) systems subject privileged administrator accounts to tighter control and greater monitoring improve incident response processes forge partnerships between industries and the government to achieve higher cybersecurity additional: it security risk assessments and audits must be treated seriously and carried out regularly enhanced safeguards must be put in place to protect confidentiality of electronic medical records improve domain security against attacks implement a robust patch management process implement a software upgrade policy with a focus on cybersecurity implement an internet access strategy that limits exposure to external threats clearer guidelines on when and how to respond to cybersecurity incidents improve competence of computer security incident response personnel consider a post-breach independent forensic review of the network on 15 january 2019, s. iswaran, minister for communications and information announced in parliament that the government accepted the recommendations of the report and will fully adopt them. it has also sped up the implementation of the cybersecurity act to increase security of ciis. separately, gan kim yong, minister for health announced that changes to enhance governance and operations in singapore's healthcare institutions and ihis will be made. the dual role of ministry of health's chief information security officer (moh ciso) and the director of cybersecurity governance at ihis will be separated, where the moh ciso has a dedicated office and reports to the permanent secretary of moh, while ihis will have a separate director in charge of cybersecurity governance, with changes at the cluster level. this will help boost operations and governance of the it systems. in addition, moh will establish an enhanced "three lines of defence" system for public healthcare, and pilot a "virtual browser" for the national university health system. all public healthcare staff will remain on internet surfing separation, which was implemented immediately after the cyberattack, and the mandatory contribution of patient medical data to the national electronic health record (nehr) system will continue to be deferred. aftermath following the cyberattack, internet access was temporarily removed from all public healthcare it terminals with access to the healthcare network, and additional system monitoring and controls were implemented. the attack led to a two-week pause in singapore's smart nation initiatives and a review of the public sector's cyber-security policies during that time. the review resulted in implementation of additional security measures, and urged public sector administrators to remove internet access where possible and to use secure information exchange gateways otherwise. the attack also renewed concerns among some healthcare practitioners regarding ongoing efforts to centralize electronic patient data in singapore. plans to pass laws in late 2018 making it compulsory for healthcare providers to submit data regarding patient visits and diagnoses to the national electronic health record system were postponed. in addition, the ministry of health announced on 6 august 2018 that the national electrical health record (nehr) will be reviewed by an independent group made up of cyber security agency and pricewaterhousecoopers before asking doctors to submit all records to the nehr, even though it was not affected by the cyberattack. on 24 july 2018, the monetary authority of singapore told banks in singapore to tighten customer verification processes in case leaked data was used to impersonate customers, with additional information requested. banks are also told to conduct risk assessments and mitigate risks from misuse of information. the integrated health information systems (ihis) has since strengthened public health systems against data breaches. all suspicious it incidents will have to be reported within 24 hours. 18 other measures are also put in place, including two-factor authentication for all administrators, proactive threat hunting and intelligence, allowing only computers with latest security updates on hospital networks, and a new database activity monitoring. studies are done to keep internet separation scheme (iss) permanent in some parts of the healthcare system with a virtual browser being piloted as an alternative. after the report was released, on 14 january 2019, integrated health information systems (ihis) dismissed two employees and demoted one for being negligent in handling and misunderstanding the attack respectively, with financial penalties imposed on two middle management supervisors, and five members of the senior management including ceo bruce liang. three employees were commended by ihis for handling the incident diligently even when not part of their job scope. ihis has since fast-tracked a suite of 18 measures for enhancing cybersecurity. the next day, the personal data protection commission fined ihis $750,000 and singhealth $250,000 for not doing enough to safeguard personal data under the personal data protection act, making it the largest fine imposed for data breaches. subsequently, on 6 march 2019, cybersecurity company symantec identified a state-sponsored group, known as whitefly, behind the cyberattack. although the country is not identified, that group has been found to be behind several related cyberattacks against singapore-based entities since 2017.