NCS Group

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NCS Group
Website www.ncs.co
Parent organisation Singapore Telecommunications Limited
Ownership type Subsidiary
Founded 1981
Headquarters 5 Ang Mo Kio Street 62, NCS Hub, Singapore 569141
, Singapore
Industry Information Technology
NCS Group's headquarters at Ang Mo Kio, Singapore. Year 2023.

NCS Group (also known as NCS Pte Ltd or "NCS", previously known as National Computer Systems) is a multinational information technology company headquartered in Singapore. NCS has over 12,000 staff located in more than 20 cities across Asia Pacific.[1] The NCS Group is currently the subsidiary of Singapore Telecommunications Limited.

History

NCS was founded in 1981 when the Government of Singapore begin to strengthen information technology for both the public and private company.[2]

It was restructured as a commercial entity in 1996 and became a wholly owned subsidiary of SingTel Group in 1997.[3] NCS adopted its current name on 1 November 2003.[2]In 2002, SingTel Aeradio merged with NCS, retaining much of its identity as NCS Communications Engineering (NCS Comms Engg).[4]

In 2008, NCS purchased 60% of local rival IT company's shares, Singapore Computer Systems, triggering a buyout of the company.[5]

In 2020, NCS acquires digital services 2359 Media.[6]

Management

In 2005, Chong Yoke Sin became the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of NCS Group. She resigned in 2007 for personal reasons and Lim Eng took over as the CEO.[7]

Lim retired in 2010 and Chief Operating Officer Chia Wee Boon took over as CEO.[8]

On 1 August 2019, the Singtel Group appointed Ng Kuo Pin as the new CEO of NCS after Chia retired and stepped down.[9]

Incident

Sex for contracts scandal

Esther Goh Tok Mui (Director of Business Development of NCS Pte Ltd at the time) was one of the women involved in the sex for contracts scandal with Peter Lim Sin Pang (commissioner of Singapore Civil Defence Force at the time). Between year 2010 and 2011, Esther Goh Tok Mui provided Lim Sin Pang sexual services or oral sex services in exchange for help in boosting the NCS Pte Ltd's business interests with the SCDF. Goh Tok Mui have sexual intercourse with Lim Sin Pang for a total of 7 times between April and November in 2011, at locations including a car park near to the Singapore Indoor Stadium and a HDB flat locate in Clementi.[10]

Peter Lim Sin Pang was caught and arrested on 4 January 2012 by the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau.[11][12] He was later expelled by SCDF on 31 Aug 2013,[13] and he was sentenced to 6 months of imprisonment for his corruption crime.[14] The contract signed between SCDF and NCS were then reportedly investigated by the Ministry of Home Affairs.[15] Because the incident had exposed, Goh Tok Mui left NCS Pte Ltd and it’s unknown if Goh was expelled or resigned.[16]

CHAS computer system error

On 16 February 2019, the Singapore's Ministry of Health (MOH) released statement stating that there was an error in the computer system, managed by NCS Group, for the Community Health Assist Scheme (CHAS). The error miscalculated the amount of health care aids applicants could receive through means-testing their income information. Thus, around 1,300 people received lower aids and 6,400 people received higher aids.

The first problem in a result of a CHAS card holder was detected on 24 September 2018 by MOH. NCS Group was informed quickly, which then consider the problem by infrequent network connection problems. Between 9 October 2018 and 2 November 2018, another 5 more error cases were detected and leading into a deeper investigation. In November 2018, NCS Pte Ltd traced the reason of problems to a software version issue used on a server used by the system. The found issue happened during a merging of the system to another government data center in September 2018. The software version issue was resolved to fix an unrelated slow performance issue on 10 October 2018. However, wrong results created between 18 September 2018 and 10 October 2018 stays.

Corrections were then carried out by MOH and NCS Group to estimate the impact on the affected applicants. MOH would then work with grant scheme administrators and healthcare institutions to follow up with notifications and repayment to the affected applicants. MOH reportedly had the intention to recover costs and expenses due to this incident from NCS Group as allowed in the contract between them.[17]

NCS employee abuse MOM data and hacking

A NCS employe assigned to Singapore's Ministry of Manpower (MOM), Abdul Gafoor Jahangeer Basha, abused the MOM data in ways including tampering and deleting it, and hacking while at work between October and December 2012. Abdul Gafoor was later fined $86,000 Singapore Dollars on 16 May 2014 by a district court for numerous offences under the Computer Misuse Act. He claimed that he committed the offences due to stress.[18][19]

NCS employee filming girls changing and abuse police database

Zheng Zhong Shi（郑忠石）, a IT consultant from NCS Group while assigned to Singapore Police Force's headquarters (Police Cantonment Complex), went to a Cotton On outlet at Plaza Singapura at about 1pm on 13 September 2014 and installed cameras in fitting rooms. The shop staff later discovered the camera and removed them and lodged a police report at about 4.50pm on the same day. Zheng returned to the clothing store at about 6.30pm on the same day to retrieve the cameras and find that it were gone. Later on 16 September 2014, at about 2am, he reported for work at the Police Cantonment Complex where his employer NCS Group had a maintenance project dealing with the police CRIMES2 database. While at work, he abused the system and searched if a police report had been made about the cameras in the Cotton On fitting room. He found the police report and it was assigned to investigation officer Siti Rahimah Asmad. Zheng later contacted the officer and turned himself in at about 8.30am. On 1 December 2015, Zheng was sentenced to 20 weeks' jail for insulting the modesty of women and for unauthorised access to a computer.[20][21]

NCS employee thieving at IMDA

Soh Jun Sheng, a Malaysian desktop engineer from NCS Group, stole a variety of technology equipment worthing more than $62,000 in Singapore Dollars from the Info-Communications Media Development Authority (IMDA) while working under NCS Group. When Soh was working at NCS Group, he was deployed to IMDA for providing IT support and issuing laptops to IMDA employees. He was also allowed to access a few secured rooms at IMDA's office.

Soh owes the debt from gambling, and decided to steal technology equipment from IMDA and sell it at Carousell for profits to pay his gambling debt. While working in IMDA office, he stole 30 Lenovo ThinkPad laptops, 6 iPads, 6 Lenovo monitors, 17 docking stations, 80 Lenovo power adaptors, 25 laptop bags, and 32 Lenovo mice from the office. Soh's burglary act at IMDA was later discovered, an IT associate from NCS Group filed a police report and Soh was arrested on 4 June 2018. The police raided his home and office, and found numerous computer devices and accessories, some of which were belongs to Soh.

The IMDA later filed a lawsuit against Soh. On 18 February 2019, Soh pleded guilty to 9 counts of criminal act and was sentenced to 2 years of imprisonment.[22][23]

Corrupt acts for business recommendations 2020

On 24 March 2020, Teo Joo Tye (Senior Technical Services Manager of NCS Group) and Ngiam Chee Chong (Director of Emersion IT Services Pte Ltd), were charged in Singapore court for corruption practice.

Teo Joo Tye accepted bribery from Ngiam Chee Chong, in exchange for Teo to recommend Emersion as a subcontractor of NCS Group to perform IT infrastructure works, relating to 13 contracts that were awarded to Emersion.[24][25]

Corrupt acts for business interests 2022

On 18 March 2022, Goh Sia Choon Jeffrey (sole Director and shareholder of SC Integrated Engineering Pte Ltd at the material time), Goh Hai Chew Edward (Director of NCS Communications Engineering Pte Ltd at the material time), and Lee Wen Han (Project Director of NCS CE at the material time), were charged in Singapore court for corruption practice.

In exchange for advancing the SCI’s business interest with NCS CE and its parent company, NCS Group, Jeffrey gave bribe totalling about $96,000 Singapore Dollars in the form of air tickets, hotel stay at Israel, cash money and electronic products to Wen Han and Edward over 19 times between 17 May 2018 and 19 November 2019.

Jeffrey face 19 counts of corruptly giving bribe to Edward and Wen Han in exchange for business interests of SCI with NCS CE and NCS Group. Wen Han and Edward will each face 19 counts of conspiring to corruptly obtain bribe from Jeffrey as an exchange for boosting the business interests.[26][27]

Workers protest at NCS Hub entrance

On 18 October 2022, 9 foreign workers blocked the main entrance of NCS Hub, the company's headquarter in Singapore, and holding up signs protesting against the contractor company they work under for owing salary. Some workers holding signs written "欠債還錢" (owe money pay money) and one of them holds "上海忠記私人有限公司" (Shanghai Chong Kee Pte Ltd). The Singapore Police Force received call for assistance at around 1.50pm and deploy police officers to NCS Hub's entrance, the Ministry of Manpower confirms received alerts to the incident by the police. The NCS Group told the Singapore news media, Lianhe Zaobao, that this incident has nothing to do with NCS Group and claimed that it's a conflict between NCS Group's main contractor Shanghai Chong Kee Pte Ltd, and sub-contractor Zhengda Corporation, and the 9 workers who protested are employees under Zhengda Corporation. According to Zhengda Corporation, Shanghai Chong Kee did not make payment for weeks. The latter has since issued two cheques.[28][29]

ERP 2.0 controversy

In 2016, Singapore LTA (Land Transport Authority) awarded a $556 million in Singapore Dollar contract to NCS Group and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) to develop Singapore’s ERP 2.0.

The new system receives negative review on issues including, processing unit is placed in unreachable spot for vehicle driver, and likely run hotter due to using older chips with bigger node sizes.[30] Drivers reportedly complaining that the location of processing unit causes inconvenience and difficulty to reach, and the touchscreen display on the right-hand side of the vehicle's dashboard blocks the driver's view.[31]

The LTA revealed that they does not recommend placing the processing unit on the dashboard of the vehicle, as the temperature there could reach 50°C to 52°C on a hot day, and the processing unit’s functioning and reliability will be affected at temperatures above 50°C. The LTA also made refutation against allegation that ERP 2.0 failed to meet international standards, by claiming that the ERP 2.0 was tested against the IEC-60068 and IEC-60529 standards, and claimed that AEC-Q100 is not the correct standard for assessing the ERP 2.0.[32]

Ex-employee hacking NCS Group system

Kandula Nagaraju was part of a team managing the quality assurance (QA) computer system at NCS Group. He was fired in October 2022 due to poor work performance claimed by NCS Group, and his official last date of employment was 16 November 2022. Kandula reportedly felt "confused and upset" as he felt he had performed well and made good contribution to NCS Group during his employment. After leaving NCS Group, he did not have another job in Singapore and returned to India.

When Kandula arrived back in India, he used his laptop to gain unauthorised access to the system using the administrator login credentials, doing so on 6 occasions between 6 Jan 2023 and 17 Jan 2023. Later in February 2023, Kandula returned to Singapore after finding a new job. He rented a room with a former NCS colleague and used his Wi-Fi network to access NCS Group's system once on 23 February 2023. During the unauthorised access in January and February 2023, he wrote some computer scripts to test if they could be used on the system to delete the servers.

In March 2023, Kandula accessed NCS Group's QA system 13 times. On 18 Mar 2023 and 19 March 2023, he ran a programmed script to delete 180 virtual servers in the system. His script was written such that it would delete the servers one at a time. The following day, the NCS team realised the system was inaccessible and tried to troubleshoot, but to no avail. They discovered that the servers had been deleted.

On 11 Apr 2023, a police report was made and several IP addresses uncovered by NCS Group's internal investigations were handed over to the police. Kandula's laptop was seized by the police and the script used to carry out the deletions was found on it. Kandula was sentenced to two years and eight months' jail on 10 June 2024 for one charge of unauthorised access to computer material. As a result of his actions, NCS Group suffered a loss of $917,832 in Singapore Dollars.[33]

NCS Group claimed that the system consisted of about 180 virtual servers, and no sensitive information was stored on them. NCS Group also claimed that Kandula's access to the test environment wasn't terminated immediately upon departure from the company was due to a "human oversight".[34]

References

  1. ↑ "NCS - Make IT Happen", The Straits Times, 20 November 2012, p. C17.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 (2012) National strategies to harness information technology : seeking transformation in Singapore, Finland, the Philippines, and South Africa. New York, NY: Springer, 45–46. ISBN 978-1-4614-2086-6. OCLC 769644297. 
  3. ↑ siowmeng (2021-01-22). NCS Has Moved Out of Singtel Group Enterprise and Doubled Down on Digital Services (en).
  4. ↑ INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS (en) (2002-10-02).
  5. ↑ SingTel buys 60% of rival IT company SCS.
  6. ↑ Tech in Asia - Connecting Asia's startup ecosystem (en-US).
  7. ↑ CEO of SingTel's unit NCS stepping down.
  8. ↑ Singtel's subsidiary NCS CEO to retire, Reuters, 2010-06-16. (in en)
  9. ↑ hermesauto (28 June 2019). Singtel promotes Ng Kuo Pin to next CEO of unit NCS (en).
  10. ↑ Whang, Rennie. The women and what they did.
  11. ↑ Migration (2013-02-18). Sex for contracts: Ex-SCDF chief Peter Lim arrives in court to face corruption charge | The Straits Times (en).
  12. ↑ Migration (2013-06-13). Sex-for-contracts trial: 6 months' jail for former SCDF chief Peter Lim | The Straits Times (en).
  13. ↑ Ex-SCDF chief Peter Lim dismissed from service (en).
  14. ↑ Migration (2013-06-13). Sex-for-contracts trial: 6 months' jail for former SCDF chief Peter Lim | The Straits Times (en).
  15. ↑ Friday, AsiaOne. Husband of woman in sex corruption case: She was 'naive and simple'.
  16. ↑ Who are the 3 women linked to ex-SCDF chief Peter Lim? (en-SG).
  17. ↑ Ng, Huiwen (16 February 2019). Chas subsidies for about 7,700 people miscalculated due to IT error: MOH (en).
  18. ↑ https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/courts-crime/man-who-misused-mom-data-fined-86k
  19. ↑ https://www.wanbao.com.sg/keywords/ru-qin-dian-nao
  20. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20160104225559/http://www.tnp.sg/news/singapore-news/pepping-tom-gets-jail-planting-cameras-changing-rooms
  21. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20180710225950/http://www.wanbao.com.sg/keywords/tou-pai?page=3
  22. ↑ Auto, Hermes (2019-02-18). Man on bail for burglary takes $62,000 in equipment while working with IMDA | The Straits Times (en).
  23. ↑ Jail for former engineer who stole computer items worth S$62,000 from IMDA (en).
  24. ↑ Auto, Hermes (2020-10-29). Man jailed for 12 weeks over bribes to secure contracts involving government agencies | The Straits Times (en).
  25. ↑ Charged with Committing Corrupt Acts for Business Recommendations (en).
  26. ↑ Three Charged for Alleged Corruption Involving About S$96,000 (en).
  27. ↑ 涉受贿近10万元 两名公司高层被控 | 早报 (zh-Hans).
  28. ↑ 声称被拖欠三个月薪金 九名外籍劳工举纸张抗议 | 早报 (zh-Hans).
  29. ↑ Police investigating after 9 workers protest outside Ang Mo Kio building over unpaid wages (en).
  30. ↑ https://sg.news.yahoo.com/ltas-new-erp-20-is-a-bad-idea-and-the-sooner-that-is-acknowledged-and-accepted-the-better-085008638.html
  31. ↑ https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/erp-cars-drivers-card-reader-obu-motorcycles-installation-4250531
  32. ↑ https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/transport/lta-refutes-claims-that-erp-20-on-board-units-do-not-comply-with-global-standards
  33. ↑ https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/former-employee-hack-ncs-delete-virtual-servers-quality-testing-4402141
  34. ↑ https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/former-ncs-employee-access-computer-system-delete-servers-human-oversight-4405131


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