Cyber Security Strategy Developed for Ghana

THE Ministry of Communications is developing a cyber security strategy for Ghana that will prevent fraud on the Internet, the Director-General of the National Communications Authority, Mr Paarock Vanpercy, has said.
The strategy will include the establishment of a national computer emergency response team (CERT) to create security awareness among the ministries, departments and agencies and other government agencies.
Addressing the opening session of the West African Cybersecurity and Cybercrime workshop for West African countries in Accra yesterday, Mr Vanpercy said a cyber security policy document focused on areas such as legislative and regulatory framework, cyber security technology framework, culture of security and capacity building, among others.
The workshop, which was organised by the US Department of State and the Government of Ghana, was aimed at providing the tools and information to evaluate and improve the sub-region’s capacity to address cybersecurity challenges.
It was also intended to help develop a comprehensive and implementable cybercrime and security regulations in Africa.
Mr Vanpercy said it also focused on strategy implementation timeliness, specific initiatives, establishment of a national cyber security working group, a national cybersecurity centre and a national cybersecurity council.
According to him, the ever-increasing threat of cybercrime and its associated impact on the economic and social development of the respective countries were a source of concern.
He said ICT had become essential to the operations of governments, corporate institutions and individuals, but the benefits accruing from the growing access to the Internet was being undermined by those exploiting its capabilities to the detriment of others.
“With such widespread use of the Internet, the data that resides on and flows across networks varying from banking and security transactions to medical records, proprietary data and personal correspondence are at the mercy of persons who have made cybercrime their chosen field of endeavour,” said Mr Vanpercy.
The Director-General of Administration of the Ghana Police Service, Commissioner of Police (COP), Ms Rose Bio Atinga, said what was even more distressing about the growing incidence of cybercrime was the fact that the masterminds behind those criminal acts included children.
Regrettably, she said,  “hacker tools” were easily available on the Internet and once downloaded, could be used by even novice computer users, thus expanding the population of possible wrongdoers.
Ms Atinga said the current trend included hacking into emails of buyers from Ghana and suppliers from Europe and Asia and obtaining valuable information which was used fraudulently.
She said the introduction of the law on cybercrimes in Ghana which allowed the police to prosecute offenders in the absence of victims or complainants would surely improve the performance of the Ghana Police Service in the arrest and prosecution of offenders.
The Head of the United States Information Service, Ms Jeanne Clarke, said the participants were to share their knowledge and experiences with colleagues from West Africa and to increase their expertise about a subject that was crucial to the security and economic development of the sub-region.
She said the United States, through the Department of State and Justice, had been providing training and technical assistance on cybersecurity in West Africa since 2006 and remained committed to helping the region to address the issue.
“If we do this, we enhance global security and create an economic and social environment that promotes the free flow of ideas and commerce. In sub-Saharan Africa, particulary here in West Africa, as wireless networks and broadband Internet access proliferate at a dizzying rate, nations are grappling with threats to this cyber environment ranging from computer hacking and sabotage to terrorism facilitated over the Internet to transnational crime,” she said.