GovInsider's upcoming events put a spotlight on cyber and defence innovation

Over the past year, the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on public sector innovation has hogged the limelight.

An important subset of these conversations has been the impact of AI on cybersecurity and defence. 

The recent release of Anthropic’s Frontier AI model Mythos and rapid advances in AI has shaken up both cybersecurity industry and homeland security with UN Secretary-General António Guterres warning about increasingly powerful civilian AI chips shifting to the battlefield.

Addressing these conversations, GovInsider has covered AI-driven threats targeting government systems, how public agencies are rethinking resilience and modernising systems to stay ahead of emerging threats.

The volume of coverage and the engagement from our audience told us something: this isn’t a passing interest. 

That is why we are creating space for deeper conversations on cybersecurity and security innovation - with two dedicated events co-located in Singapore for the first time.  

On August 13th, GovInsider Live: Cybersecurity Day and Security Innovation Forum will gather public sector leaders in Singapore to discuss ways to strengthen digital government resilience in the AI era. 

Participants may opt in to register for both events and enjoy the sessions across the day, access networking opportunities, and engage in the most trending topics for Singapore’s public sector innovation. 

We zoom in on our recent coverage on these topics. 

Cybersecurity at the forefront 

As Singapore's public sector accelerates its digital transformation, government services, identity systems, and critical infrastructure are becoming increasingly interconnected across hybrid, multi-cloud, and AI-enabled environments.  

While adoption of AI, automation, and sovereign digital platforms are enhancing public service delivery, they are also fundamentally reshaping the cybersecurity landscape, as reflected by GovTech Singapore’s approach to building up a secure environment for public sector agencies that are venturing into AI development. 

At the same time, cyber threats are becoming more sophisticated, autonomous, and AI-driven.  

The emergence of frontier AI is enabling adversaries to discover vulnerabilities, exploit attack paths, and launch cyberattacks at machine speed.  

These evolving threats require governments to move beyond reactive security towards AI-native defence, continuous exposure management, real-time threat detection, and coordinated cross-agency resilience. 

For one, Singpass rolled out a new passkey in July 2026, an additional step of authentication that matches matches the key stored on the user's device and a public key stored in the Singpass system before access to the Singpass account is given.

Individual agencies also need to change the way they guard against threats in this era of AI development, along with the hyper-personalised scams that are proliferating. 

For example, having alternate ways of verification — even when it comes to trusted colleagues. 

The message is that strong cybersecurity needs to be a full organisational effort that becomes instinctual for every individual, and not just a top-down directive.  

 
GovInsider's Cyber Security Day will bring together 150 public sector cyber leaders, architects, and technical practitioners to discuss practical strategies for securing and future-proofing Singapore's digital government.  

 
The range of topics discussed include AI governance, identity security, frontier AI threats, AI-native cyber defence, Zero Trust, sovereign cloud security, SOC modernisation, and post-quantum readiness.

Register here! 

Security innovation goes beyond technology 

The Security Innovation Forum sits at the intersection of digital government and national security. 

As agencies across defence, security, homeland, and foreign affairs work to build resilience for the next generation, the challenge is keeping pace with fast-moving threats without fragmentation or capability gaps. 

Singapore’s Home Team Science & Technology Agency (HTX), for instance, which specialises in innovations for public safety, emphasised that cultural and structural change were the most impactful when it came to digital transformation. 

Within HTX, xDigital empowered staff to become AI-ready, by engaging people in various stages of the transformation process.  

This engagement and capability-building were critical to ensure officers not only had knowledge of emerging technologies but also felt prepared and confident to use them. 

HTX’s experience shows that human-centred transformation such as upskilling and capability-building are important parts of security innovation, as defenders must be knowledgeable about the tools they use, and the threats they fight against. 

And we are seeing this across Asia – India's Ministry of Defence has turned to AI to fight AI-generated threats. Risk assessment for public sector agencies in India is now powered by AI-enabled defence strategies for higher speed of detection and response. 

But beyond speed, this shift “changes how security teams are organised” — toward more proactive stances, said India’s Ministry of Defence (MoD)’s Director of IT and Cybersecurity, Vivek Yadav. 

In Hong Kong, public agencies are also driving efforts to be more strategic and proactive as security postures advance.

Hong Kong’s Police Force’s Special Advisor of the Police Hostage Negotiation Unit, Peter Morgan, says that to harness the innovation capabilities of the rich expertise within the government, public sector leaders must actively break the culture of silence that prevents officers from sharing their perspectives.

The support of leadership is key for security innovation, as we are seeing in Singapore where officers are increasingly advocating for a culture of innovation that invites, encourages, and supports new ideas, experimentation, and creation.

From Singapore Prison officers creating digital solutions that address ground level pain points and enhance efficiency in daily processes, and an Air Warfare Officer that developed an application to smooth a pen-and-paper process, to engineers that develop systems that help the defence sector become safer and more effective, our latest Young & Official special report showcased how young public sector officials are thriving in public security and defence environments that welcome innovations from the ground up. 

To hear directly from agency leads and practitioners on how capability-building efforts and emerging technologies can be reconciled for a stronger and more resilient security posture, leadership from home, security, and defence sectors are encouraged to attend the Security Innovation Forum.  

Register here!