By George Aine
About 150 cybersecurity experts will on 6th September 2018 converge in Kampala for the East Africa Cyber Defence conference in a bid to draw strategies on how to deal with cyber-attacks.
The two-day conference will be addressing how organizations, which are particularly prone to cyber incidents, should be preparing and how they should effectively handle the crisis in case of its occurrence.
“The most effective way to prevent cyber-attacks is to be ahead by having good visibility of potential threats and a plan of how to react adequately. It is great to see that the region is already taking steps forward as the countries start thinking and talking about preparation before the actual crisis occurs,” said Mr. Vilius Benetis, NRD Cyber Security CEO, one of the organizers of the event.
“This fast pace absorption of technologies, the rapidly increasing use of cloud-based solutions as well as the increasing economic gains are bringing new challenges to securing the cyber environment in East Africa,” he added.
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Mr. Arnold Mangeni, the Director Information Security at NITA-U, said Government has put in place the National Information Security Framework which provides for minimum security outcomes every Government agency and Critical Information Infrastructure operator is required to maintain.
“This includes incident response and crisis management largely focused on a prevention and proactive approach. He further added that collaborations such as these are key for increasing cybersecurity capacity for both public and private sector entities which is critical for any effective protection response,” he said.
James Saaka, the Executive Director, NITA-U, said the conference will help in combating cyber threats that are emerging all the time.
Mr. Mangeni said the unfortunate occurrence of cyber crisis in critical sectors such as finance, transport, public health, etc. can have disastrous effects and even lead to crisis at a national level, hence affecting the whole society.
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