SINGAPORE: Singapore Sports Hub is investigating claims of a bulk purchase of more than 200 tickets for Ed Sheeran’s gig here in November, it told Channel NewsAsia on Saturday (May 13). 

This comes after Facebook user Aida Aretha posted an exchange between her and a Carousell user on the concert’s event page. In it, Aretha said someone touting Ed Sheeren tickets online claimed a friend from “Sports Hub management” helped snap up 220 tickets – 100 for the Nov 11 show, and 120 for the Nov 12 concert. 

The seller, who goes by the username reseller_772, was hawking two Category 1 tickets for S$1,100. Tickets for that category were sold on Sports Hub Tix for S$248 each. 

Singapore Sports Hub’s senior director for Corporate Communications and Stakeholder Management Chin Sau Ho said they are in contact with the relevant authorities about these allegations. 

“We have systems and checks in place to identify any breach of policy by staff or partners. Appropriate action will be taken against any party found guilty of offence,” Mr Chin said. 

“The Singapore Sports Hub categorically does not condone the sale of tickets for shows held at any of our venues other than through official channels,” he added. 

Mr Chin reiterated that no resellers have been authorised to sell tickets for this show.

“Sports Hub urges the public not to purchase tickets other than through official channels as these may not be accepted at the venue.” 

Tickets for Sheeran’s Singapore concerts were quickly snapped up soon after they were released. Concert organiser AEG Asia swiftly announced a second show after the first one was sold out. Tickets for both shows are no longer available. 

“We understand that there were many disappointed fans who were unable to purchase tickets. This was due to overwhelming demand for the show, which far outstripped the number of available tickets,” Mr Chin said. 

Tickets to both shows have resurfaced on platforms such as Carousell and Viagogo at inflated prices. 

While many have expressed their disappointment with Sports Hub Tix after being unable to get their hands on tickets to Sheeran’s concert, it said on Thursday that its ticketing system “operated without any technical issues and managed the high demand”. 

Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story stated that Singapore Sports Hub is investigating claims of stolen tickets. This has been corrected.

SINGAPORE — When news of a major tainted meat scandal in Brazil emerged in March, alarm bells went off from South Africa to China and Singapore in a sign of how globalised the food supply chain has become.

The South American country’s powerhouse meatpacking industry exports to more than 150 countries. For Singapore, Brazil is considered a major source of supply of beef, chicken and pork despite the huge geographic distance apart.

Though the scandal involved just 21 of 4,837 meat-processing facilities in Brazil, Singapore’s Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA) took no chances and brought in a higher-than-usual amount of meat samples from Brazil to its laboratories for analysis.

“We analysed all (the extra meat samples) in two to three days, on top of the regular meats we examine on a regular basis,” recalled Ms Elaine Teo, a senior scientist at AVA’s drug residue laboratory.

While AVA quickly established that Singapore was not affected by the Brazilian scandal involving rotten meat being sold with faked certificates, the incident underscored the complexities of managing food safety in the face of a globalised supply chain.

Land-scarce Singapore has to import most of its food. Over 90 per cent of its food over the past two years, for instance, had to be imported from some 170 countries worldwide.

AVA recently gave TODAY an inside look at its layered approach to ensuring food safety, which involves multiple risk assessments, inspections, laboratory tests, and monitoring of the numerous food types and sources of supply that enter Singapore.

GATEKEEPING

^{(Workers at Singapore’s only pig abattoir dispatching the animals from the barge in batches. The pigs are from a farm in Bulan Island, Indonesia. Photo: Today/Najeer Yusof)}

Countries that wish to export livestock, meat, and eggs to Singapore must first be accredited by the AVA.

“We look at the capabilities of the exporting country. Are they able to ensure food safety, the animals’ health, and the meat products they export to Singapore?” said Mr Herman Teo, a senior executive manager at AVA’s accreditation division.

He added: “We also look at their labs’ diagnostic capabilities, and how they regulate farms, slaughterhouses and food factories on the ground.”

AVA officials travel overseas widely and regularly to inspect their counterparts’ disease surveillance and pesticides monitoring systems. Foreign commercial food factories and farms are also vetted.

An AVA team was coincidentally in Brazil to inspect one of its export establishments when the meat scandal in March broke out.

Currently, over 1,000 establishments from 36 countries have been accredited to export various meat and egg products to Singapore.

“We have to ensure that their inspectors on the ground – both their veterinarians and food inspectors – are well-trained and know the symptoms of diseases. They need to have the confidence and ability to flag out deficiencies in their food factories and farms,” said Mr Teo.

The AVA also works closely with the local authorities in exporting countries to ensure food safety at the source. This has led to the set up of several disease-free animal farming zones in Malaysia and China.

To keep periodic concerns like bird flu at bay, the AVA has been assisting their Indonesian counterparts in controlling and managing bird flu outbreaks in Batam and Bintan since 2006.

STRINGENT CHECKS

Once imported into Singapore, live animals and food items are subjected to strict inspection and surveillance.

^{(Pigs that do not pass the visual inspection are detained for further inspection. A pink sticker with the word ‘detained’ is pasted on the meat as it is pulled away from the main line. Photo: TODAY/Najeer Yusof)}

For example, three AVA inspectors, including a supervisor, are stationed at the only pig abattoir in Singapore from Saturday to Thursday to conduct visual checks on over 6,000 pigs shipped from Bulan Island, off Batam. There are no deliveries on Fridays.

As the pigs get shepherded from the barge into the abattoir, located at Buroh Lane near Jurong Port Road, the inspectors keep an eye out for anomalies on the animals’ gait, body condition, and skin colour.

One inspector will then inspect the meat, while the other checks the organs.

Pigs that pass the AVA inspection are then branded with a pink mark by a staff from the commercial abattoir. Pigs that fail the inspection, which number two to three daily, are further examined by an AVA supervisor who looks out for signs like abscesses in the liver.

“If (the abscess) is localised, we just remove it. However, if the anomaly is generalised, the whole pig is condemned and we make a report,” said Mr Placido Ronald Palapal, a senior executive manager at AVA’s slaughterhouses surveillance section.

The condemned sample, along with other random samples, are then brought to AVA’s laboratories, where they are subjected to a battery of tests for drug residues or parasites.

^{(AVA inspectors conducting visual checks on imported live poultry arriving at Tuas checkpoint. Photo: AVA)}

Similar checks are also conducted for live poultry coming through the Tuas Checkpoint, and at 14 local chicken and duck slaughterhouses.

Over the past two years, some 14,000 samples from the local poultry slaughterhouses had been sent to AVA’s laboratories to test for bird flu, salmonella, and other diseases.

Besides live animals like pigs and poultry, AVA also inspects frozen and chilled meat, eggs, fruits and vegetables, and high-risk food like infant milk formula.

“It is impractical to inspect and test all food options available in our market. Our inspection and surveillance programme is based on scientific risk assessment,” said Dr Paul Chiew, AVA’s programme chief (food safety) and group director of laboratories group.

In 2016, AVA conducted over 8,200 inspections and sampling of local farms, while about 6,900 inspections were done on food factories in the same year.

^{(Frozen meat being inspected at the cold store of Seo Eng Joo’s warehouse. These imported meat products are inspected for abnormalities such as traces of blood and smell. The temperature of the freezer ranges from -18 to -20 degrees Celsius. Photo: TODAY/Najeer Yusof)}

AVA will cull the infected animals in the event of a disease outbreak in the local farms, such as in 2015 when a poultry farm was affected by a salmonella virus outbreak.

Local poultry farms are bird-proofed to prevent contact between wild birds (that may carry viruses) and the domesticated birds.

Professor Zhou Weibiao, director of the National University of Singapore’s food science and technology programme, said Singapore has one of the highest food safety and security standards in the world.

“In many cases, Singapore is better than many developed countries. Some regulations (in Singapore) are even stricter than the US or Europe,” said Professor Zhou. “This is because Singapore’s regulatory system is a collection of the best practices around the world.”

^{(At the drug residue laboratory, meat samples are tested for antibiotics, hormones and anti-parasitic drugs. Photo: TODAY/Najeer Yusof)}

SCENARIO PLANNING

While strict, Singapore’s food safety and regulatory systems are not impregnable. The country’s strategic location and status as a transit hub also make it vulnerable to contagions, said Prof Zhou.

“For example, food poisoning can spread. You can’t stop international travel,” he added.

To that end, AVA has conducted simulation exercises to test out responses to various scenarios, such as a short-term food supply disruption.

An inter-agency crisis management structure called One Health, involving AVA, the National Environment Agency (NEA), and Ministry of Health (MOH), is also in place to respond to foodborne disease outbreaks.

One Health was activated in response to the Group B Streptococcus (GBS) bacteria outbreak in 2015 that affected raw-fish dishes, and a 2016 mass food poisoning case that affected over 100 people who consumed unclean food from a caterer.

“As food contamination can occur at any point in the food chain, it is essential for all of us to play our part in ensuring that food in Singapore is safe,” Dr Chiew said. “Food safety is a shared responsibility between the government, industry, and public.”

SINGAPORE — Amid signs that a number of local retailers, malls and individuals have been hit by the global “ransomware” attack, the Cyber Security Agency of Singapore (CSA) has urged those affected not to pay the hackers.

Doing so will not necessarily resolve the problem, and there have been cases where affected users have been unable to access their computer files after paying up, the agency warned in a statement on Sunday (May 14).

The online attack has claimed some 200,000 victims in at least 150 countries since it first struck last Friday’s (May 12). Cyber extortionists used a tool to trick victims into opening emails with malicious malware attachments, which would then lock up a user’s computer until a ransom is paid.

“While affected users may choose to pay ransom to access their files again, users are advised not to pay the ransom as there is no guarantee that their files can be recovered even if they have done so,” said Mr Dan Yock Hau, director of CSA’s National Cyber Incident Response Centre.

He added: “There have been instances where users were unable to access their files again.”

Giving an update on the global attack’s impact on Singapore, he said the agency’s Singapore Computer Emergency Response Team (SingCERT) has helped one retail shop owner to clean up its affected systems.

The response team has also offered to help some malls affected by the WannaCrypt ransomware worm. Tiong Bahru Plaza was among the victims, with its digital directory service infected by the worm since late Saturday afternoon.

Ms Karen Siow, the mall’s general manager, said in a statement that the service is provided by a third party vendor, adding: “There is no other anticipated impact from this malware as the digital directory systems, from the onset, run on a separate network from the rest of the corporate networks of AsiaMalls.”

Desigual’s digital display at their Orchard Central outlet in Singapore. Photo: Vladimir Ivanov/Facebook

The CSA said on Saturday that no government agencies or critical information infrastructure (CII) in Singapore have been affected so far.

Reports of the massive cyberattack first emerged in the United Kingdom where several hospitals and clinics had to turn away patients after losing access to their computers. Subsequent reports pointed to telecommunication firms in Spain, international shipper FedEx and departments of the Russian government being hit as well. Security firms said over 70 countries have been affected so far, with Russia, Ukraine, India, and Taiwan among the worst hit.

^{(An advisory on the Singapore Computer Emergency Response Team (SingCERT)’s website on Saturday (May 13) following the “wannacry” ransomware cyberattacks. Photo: SingCERT)}

Following news of the global attacks, companies here are known to be stepping up checks and precautionary measures. Nevertheless, cyber security experts TODAY spoke to said the ransomware attack appears to be random in nature, and not specifically targeted.

The ongoing attacks seemed too “widespread and indiscriminate” to have been the work of terrorist groups which is usually geared at attacking a single country or critical infrastructure, said Mr Anthony Lim, a cybersecurity consultant at Fortinet.

On the seemingly coordinated timing of the attacks around the world, Mr Lim said that such malware, like a virus, could have been spreading innocuously via spam emails or phishing links, among other things, over the past few weeks or so, before being activated on a certain day or time.

Mr Lim also noted the difference between the ongoing global attacks and the advanced persistent threat (APT) attacks which hit the National University of Singapore and Nanyang Technological University last month. The attacks on the two universities were made known by the authorities on Friday. Mr Lim pointed out that APT perpetrators use more stealthy methods which are hard to detect.

Mr Tok Yee Ching, an executive committee member at the Association of Information Security Professionals, said cyber attacks occur on a daily basis. In this current situation, the hackers seem to be trying to demand money from anyone with “inherently vulnerable” security systems which have not been updated or protected adequately, as opposed to seeking to steal government data or intellectual property.

Mr Kane Lightowler, Carbon Black’s managing director of Asia-Pacific and Japan, said such large-scale, fast-spreading ransomware attacks were inevitable. The attackers had used old tactics but tapped on a newly-discovered vulnerability in Microsoft Windows to enable the worm to “spread so quickly and indiscriminately across the globe”.

He also noted that ransomware-related attacks are usually launched by organised crime groups which are motivated purely by financial gain. “This has become a very lucrative business for them and we will continue to see these attacks rise in both sophistication and occurrence,” he said.

He advised affected individuals and organisations against paying the ransom to cyber criminals, as there would be “no guarantee” they would get their files back. Those who pay up could also risk being prime targets for subsequent attacks, he said.

Mr Tony Jarvis, chief strategist of threat prevention in APAC, Middle East & Africa at Check Point Software Technologies, said he is seeing a number of leaked tools which have fallen into the wrong hands. “Because of this, would-be attackers now have powerful tools at their disposal, with the majority of organisations unprepared for such attacks. These factors combine to form a perfect storm for attacks on an unprecedented level,” he said.

Warning about possible copycat attacks, Mr Tok said companies could consider spending more on detection mechanisms, or proactively looking for any threats in their networks instead of taking on a “passive defence approach and waiting for something to happen.”

He also warned against opening attachments sent by strangers, or downloading illegal software which could come with malicious features, and advised having anti-virus systems installed on computers.

The best way to combat ransomware is a good prevention strategy, through the following steps –

1. Patching applications and operating systems: WannaCry was able to spread quickly by exploiting a vulnerability in Windows that Microsoft had released a patch for in March

2. Backup: Regularly backup all systems and critical data and keep copies offline. This makes recovery quick and simple

3. Use Next Generation Anti-Virus (NGAV) such as Carbon Black Defence: Common antivirus products are ineffective at preventing ransomware attacks and the vectors they use to spread

4. Always remain vigilant when opening attachments: Cybercriminals commonly deploy their ransomware through phishing campaigns that trick a user into clicking a malicious link or opening a malicious attachment. These are often disguised as files from people you trust, such as a friend, family member or even a trusted brand such as your bank. Be very cautious of any email that attempts to create urgency to click a link or attachment.

SINGAPORE: Singapore Sports Hub is investigating claims of stolen tickets for Ed Sheeran’s gig here in November, it told Channel NewsAsia on Saturday (May 13). 

This comes after Facebook user Aida Aretha posted an exchange between her and a Carousell user on the concert’s event page. In it, Aretha said the seller on Carousell claimed his friend works with Singapore Sports Hub, and stole away with 220 tickets – 100 for the Nov 11 show, and 120 for the Nov 12 concert. 

The seller, who goes by the username reseller_772, was hawking two Category 1 tickets for S$1,100. Tickets for that category were sold on Sports Hub Tix for S$248 each. 

Singapore Sports Hub’s senior director for Corporate Communications and Stakeholder Management Chin Sau Ho said they are in contact with the relevant authorities about these allegations. 

“We have systems and checks in place to identify any breach of policy by staff or partners. Appropriate action will be taken against any party found guilty of offence,” Mr Chin said. 

“The Singapore Sports Hub categorically does not condone the sale of tickets for shows held at any of our venues other than through official channels,” he added. 

Mr Chin reiterated that no resellers have been authorised to sell tickets for this show.

“Sports Hub urges the public not to purchase tickets other than through official channels as these may not be accepted at the venue.” 

Tickets for Sheeran’s Singapore concerts were quickly snapped up soon after they were released. Concert organiser AEG Asia swiftly announced a second show after the first one was sold out. Tickets for both shows are no longer available. 

“We understand that there were many disappointed fans who were unable to purchase tickets. This was due to overwhelming demand for the show, which far outstripped the number of available tickets,” Mr Chin said. 

Tickets to both shows have resurfaced on platforms such as Carousell and Viagogo at inflated prices. 

While many have expressed their disappointment with Sports Hub Tix after being unable to get their hands on tickets to Sheeran’s concert, it said on Thursday that its ticketing system “operated without any technical issues and managed the high demand”.