Deputy Prime Minister Tony Tan said the three-year program would cost 38 million Singapore dollars (24 million US) and was a vital step in ensuring the city-state's globalised economy ran smoothly.

"We cannot afford to treat the threats from cyber-terrorists, cyber-criminals and irresponsible hackers lightly," Tan, who is also the Coordinating Minister for Security and Defence, said at an information and communications (infocomm) seminar.

"It is no exaggeration to say that the nation's infocomm infrastructure has become the nerve centre of Singapore's economy."

Tan said areas such as finance, energy, water resources, telecommunications, health care and transport had become increasingly reliant on technology and any disruption in one sector could paralyse the entire economy.

"(Cyber-strikes) can seriously damage a country's economy if they are able to penetrate and attack critical infrastructure like the navigational systems, the country's stock exchange or the telecommunications networks," he said.

Tan said the plan would develop Singapore's capabilities to protect the country's infrastructure from such threats and respond swiftly to recover after a strike takes place.

It involves raising awareness within government, the private sector and general community about the threats and implementing appropriate security measures, he said.

It also aims to develop a pool of "capable and qualified security professionals" to combat cyber-attacks.

One project is the establishment of a national cyber-threat monitoring centre. A more secure authentication process is also being developed to protect parties to online transactions.

Howard Schmidt, a former White House advisor on cyber-security who spoke at the infocomm seminar, called for a coordinated response among government agencies as well as governments worldwide in the fight against cyber-attacks.

He said cyber-criminals were now targeting not just governments and big corporations but also small businesses and Internet home users.

Samuel Varnado, director of the Information Systems Centre at US-based Sandia National Laboratories, said Singapore was more vulnerable to disruption because of its small size, unlike in the United States where a cyber-attack in one state would not necessarily affect another.

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