New drive to fight hackers

Rwanda Development Board (RDB) and the Ministry of Youth and ICT have launched an awareness campaign to counter cyber security threats in the country.The drive seeks to sensitise the public on the persistent cyber attacks on institutions whose business model relies on information networking.As business continues to become more digitised, cyber attacks continue to pose a substantial risk of disrupting public and private information infrastructure.Speaking to The New Times, Patrick Nyirishema, the head of ICT department at RDB, said: “Many people are unaware of the risks of cyber attacks. This is the time to seriously address cyber security. Hackers know that people are unaware and use the opportunity to achieve their personal gains.”Nyirishema said the global economy is becoming more digitalised, which comes with cyber attacks that can seriously damage ICT networks.The consequences of cyber attacks include, among others, leaking national security confidential information, destroying research materials with no backup, sale of trade secrets to competitors and using one’s identity information to open new accounts leaving that person liable to pay.“The campaign is not tied to any particular incident; it’s a general awareness programme because, globally, the trend of cyber threats is increasing. So as a country that is aggressively promoting ICT, we have decided to increase public awareness of Internet security,” Nyirishema said.He added: “We have specific programmes in various institutions and we shall take the campaign to radios, newspapers and TVs. The campaign, dubbed “Cyber Security is everyone’s responsibility,” focuses on creating a robust cyber security that will continue to be the protection of critical national infrastructure.Commendable effortKim Hong Sum, the chief executive officer of AhnLab, a security software provider in South Korea, said cyber attacks present major threats to networked business.“As the growth of the networked business model continues to accelerate, the attacks will be frequent and targeting vulnerable institutions,” he said at the launch, which brought together stakeholders to discuss possible measures to counter Internet threats.Kim appealed to Rwandan institutions and their partners to strengthen existing security policies and infrastructure with additional layers of protection.The government plans to hire the services of the Korea Internet and Security Agency in information protection technology in the country.

National

New drive to fight hackers