October 6, 2023 Outcomes of the 16th ASEAN-Japan Cybersecurity Policy Meeting

The 16th ASEAN-Japan Cybersecurity Policy Meeting (hereafter “Policy Meeting”) was held from Tuesday, October 3 to Wednesday, October 4, 2023. The Policy Meeting has been held annually since 2009, with the purpose of enhancing international collaboration on cybersecurity among the ASEAN member states (hereafter “AMS”) and Japan.
In this year’s Policy Meeting, AMS and Japan exchanged views regarding the cybersecurity policies of each country over the past year and also confirmed the status of collaborative activities (hereafter “CAs”) such as information sharing of the good practice of critical information infrastructure protection, the topic of joint awareness raising, capacity building, joint government-industry-academia partnership and cyber exercises. Furthermore, they discussed how the CAs should be for the future.
As the result of that, AMS and Japan confirmed that they will make efforts for further progress and also agreed to their engagement to the CAs in this Policy Meeting.

1. Date and Time

Date/Location：

October 3 (Tue) -4 (Wed) 2023, at Tokyo

Host：

Cabinet Secretariat (National Center of Incident Readiness and Strategy for Cybersecurity (NISC), Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC), Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI).

Co-Chairs:

Japan (Visiting Prof. TAKAMIZAWA Nobushige, The University of Tokyo) Philippines (Mr. Jeffrey Ian Dy, Undersecretary for Connectivity, Cybersecurity and Upskilling of Department of Information and Communication Technology (DICT))

Keynote Speeches:

Dr. SHINODA Yoichi ( Cybersecurity Advisor to the National center of Incident readiness and Strategy for Cybersecurity)

Attendees：

Cybersecurity/Telecommunications related Government Agencies of AMS, ASEAN Secretariat, Japan’s Cabinet Secretariat, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA), Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry

2. Main achievements

In addition to confirming the current implementation status of the 9 CAs (Reference (Handbook), Mutual Notification for Incidents, Cyber Exercise, Critical Information Infrastructure Protection, Awareness Raising, Capacity Building, Joint Government-Industry-Academia and the 50th Year of ASEAN-Japan Friendship and Cooperation) agreed upon at the 15th Policy Meeting held in October last year, participants also discussed collaboration and cooperation among AMS and Japan going forward. The main contents are below.

1. Development of ASEAN-Japan Cybersecurity Reference (Handbook)

The result of development of the 2023 reference (Handbook) which compiles the latest implementation status of cybersecurity efforts of AMS and Japan was reported. Also, participants discussed and approved the direction of next year’s reference which some new items such as public and private partnership will be added.

2. Enhancing the Information Sharing Framework and the Incident Handling Skills

As a part of information sharing promotion framework among ASEAN and Japan, this year’s result including the reconfirming of mutual notification system or incident handling mechanisms on the case of partner country’s cyber incident experience was reported. Also, participants discussed further improvement of information sharing framework.

3. Promoting Cyber Exercises for Enhancing Cyber Incident Response Capacity or Addressing Cyber Policy Challenges

A cybersecurity table top exercise was conducted in the August 2023 and, based on the exercise result, the incident handling procedure of governmental agencies when critical infrastructure sectors experience cyber incidents, efforts on the ensuring reliability of administrative service or best practices and cybersecurity challenges of each country were reported. In addition, the direction of future cybersecurity exercise was discussed.

4. Promoting Efforts on the Critical Information Infrastructure Protection

In the August of this year, the Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Workshop was held in Hanoi, Vietnam. At the workshop, it was reported that AMS and Japan exchanged their insights on the latest research and development situation regarding critical infrastructure protection, security risks on the cloud environment, knowledge of security maturity or public and private collaboration initiatives.
Additionally, themes of next year’s CIIP Workshop was also discussed.

5. Promoting Cooperation for Capacity Building

It was reported that the implementation status of cybersecurity capacity building (Human resource development) projects conducted by Japan and the cooperation with international organizations. The opening ceremony of the training program of the ASEAN-Japan Cybersecurity Capacity Building Centre (AJCCBC), the result of training programs and future workshopｓ were reported. In addition, Japan explained “JP-US-EU Industrial Control Systems Cybersecurity Week for the Indo-Pacific Region” which is planned to be held in the mid of October including its hands-on training and seminars on the Industrial Control System security, MOFA’s cooperation with the World Bank “Cybersecurity Multi-Donor Trust Fund” and JICA training courses.

6. Promoting Awareness Raising.

It was reported that video contents on the cybersecurity awareness raising nominated by AMS and Japan were demonstrated and a film created by Indonesian students won the best award. The ones made by Malaysian and Vietnamese students were won the excellence awards.

7. Joint Government-Industry-Academia Collaborative Activity and the 50th Year of ASEAN-Japan Friendship and Cooperation Activity

The progress of the Joint Government-Industry-Academia collaboration for cybersecurity capacity enhancement including critical infrastructure sectors among entire of ASEAN region was reported.
Also, it was reported that the International Conference on ASEAN-Japan Cybersecurity Community was held on the 5th -6th of October and AMSs and Japan would facilitate the discussions on the collaboration of each country’s cybersecurity related business association.

3. Upcoming Schedule

The 17th Policy Meeting is scheduled to be held around October 2024 at Singapore.