Cyber security ministry a welcome development

Jacob Kudzayi Mutisi  Correspondent
Well done to the Government of Zimbabwe for having created the new Ministry of Cyber Security, Threat Detection and Mitigation. This is the first of its kind and as Zimbabwe Information Communication Technologies (ZICT) hope and pray that all the structures will be put in place as soon as possible.

We live in an increasingly networked world, from personal banking to government infrastructure. Protecting those networks is no longer optional. Cyber security is now firmly at the top of the international agenda as high-profile breaches raise fears that hack attacks and other security failures could endanger the economy. According to a report by Thomson Reuters Accelus, the cost of global cyber crime per year was estimated at US$1 trillion and growing according to their estimations, but this was only in 2015. In articles published by Security Intelligence and CSO Online on compiled statistics derived from the statistics found by a number of reputable organisations, the following numbers were produced:

The global cost of cyber crime is expected to annually reach US$2 trillion by 2019 and US$6 trillion by 2021. In the United States, it was discovered that cyber theft is by far the fastest growing crime. Also, given that as the world goes digital, people have become the top target for cyber criminals as opposed to machines. According to Microsoft, they estimate that by 2020, up to four billion people will be online and that will double today’s figures for what is known as the “human attack surface” or the number of people who can be possibly targeted by cyber criminals online.

This means cyber crime will continue to grow as a lucrative industry for criminals. With respect to ratios of exploitation according to industries and causes of data breaches, the tables below show the rankings in that regard as of 2016. Given the figures mentioned for cyber crime, cyber security spending is expected to exceed US$1 trillion from 2017 to 2021. It’s not surprising that governments and businesses around the world are searching for better cyber defence strategies and by having a minister to focus on curbing cybercrime is a very positive move by the Government of Zimbabwe.

In May 2017, ZICT held a Cyber Crime and Cyber security workshop at a Harare hotel. It was attended by senior Government officials, political leaders, CEOs and representatives from computer security companies, major retailers, law enforcement and technical experts and the focus was to collaborate and explore partnerships that will help develop the best ways to bolster Zimbabwe’s cyber security.

Cyber attacks can be breaches in data security and sabotage. Personal data, intellectual property, trade secrets and information relating to bids, mergers and prices are tempting targets for a data security breach. Sabotage can take the form of denial of service attacks, which flood web services with bogus messages, as well as more conventional efforts to disable systems and infrastructure. In addition to commercial losses and public relations problems, disruption of operations and the possibility of extortion, cyber attacks may also expose an organisation to regulatory action, negligence claims, the inability to meet contractual obligations and a damaging loss of trust among customers and suppliers.

Most cyber crime incidents go unreported and few companies come forward with information on their losses. That is not surprising given the risk to an organisation’s reputation and the prospect of legal action against those that own up to cyber crime. Few of the biggest cyber criminals have been caught many are yet to be identified. A significant proportion of cyber crime also goes undetected, particularly industrial espionage where access to confidential documents and data is difficult to spot. There is a danger that a business might trade at a disadvantage for months or even years as a result of a continuing, but undetected, security breach.

The Government of Zimbabwe is tightening laws to ensure organisations take greater responsibility for cyber security and report cyber breaches. The reporting of breaches is important in that it enables Government agencies to take action to strengthen security, allows individuals to mitigate harm and encourages organisations to adopt effective security measures. With the introduction of the new Ministry of Cyber Security, Threat Detection and Mitigation as the first step to fight these possible attacks. We hope the Government continues to engage stakeholder to avoid the mistrust that currently exists.

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