By Sulayman Waan
The Ministry of Information and Communication Infrastructure (MOICI) in partnership with The Gambia Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (PURA), Ministry of Interior, Civil Society Organizations (CSO), and the private sector have commenced a national cyber security awareness campaign.
The awareness campaign is currently underway at MOICI headquarter in Kanifing.
This national awareness raising on cyber security aims at enlightening the masses on the importance of cyber security as well as to enables the public to have a comprehensive understanding of cyber risks and threats.
The crusade involved three television stations, six radio stations and six print media outlets across the country for information dissemination.
In his opening remarks, Sanusi Drammeh, Principal Information Communication and Technology (ICT) Officer at MOICI said the programme is meant to raise cyber security awareness to ensure the public knows how to protect themselves and their entities.
“This programme came as a result of implementing the recommendations of the National Development Plan (NDP) under critical enablers five (5) which envisage making the Gambia a digital nation in this modern information society,” he said.
To implement this programme smoothly, he said MOICI came up with a cyber security awareness strategy. He noted that in the strategy there are various activities including conducting nationwide cyber security awareness which involved a cross-section of media houses to disseminate information.
Mr Drammeh said cyber security is the practice of protecting data, mainly digital content as well as the system in which information passes through. He explained that cyber security also involves putting policies, rules, and procedures in place in order to increase the cyber security posture of an organization or entity.
“At the national level, it involves putting in place legal instrument and policies in order to improve national security as well as protect the digital infrastructure of people and entities,” the ICT expert said. Continue on back page
Importance of Cyber Security
Cyber security is paramount in the protection of lives and properties from cybercriminals, it also enhance people and entities’ effective participation in digital technology usage.
“This helps people to access information as well as to conduct digital transactions. It is also good for economical reasons because the ICT sector is a major contributor to our gross domestic product (GDP). Looking at the GSM operators companies contribute a lot to national development. So if this system is disrupted. It would affect our socio-economic development,” he explained.
Further to that cyber security would give confidence to foreign investors in the country and it would also serve as deterrence of cybercriminals to use the country to launch cyber-attacks on neighboring countries.
“There are numerous solutions you can implore in order to protect your entity and yourself from cybercriminals. One is awareness, when you are aware you will know the threads and the solutions to implore. And you can also use the opportunity to inform others.”
However, one can install protected mechanisms such as antivirus, updated applications, firewalls, and others in his or her device to help in escaping cybercrimes.
Save online practices is also important. When browsing, you need to be careful of a few things includes: the website to visit and which link to click and the email to open. And when you come to the website there is what they called phishing attack.
Phishing means disguising a website that is legitimate while they are fakes. Some cybercriminals would disguise Face book and many would think it is real because the colour would be the same but the address would be different.
Meanwhile, how many people encounter cyber threats on Face book, he said: “Face book. Application.Com when you see Facebook and you see .com you will say this is Facebook but the application in between is not Facebook. Again you can have an application. Face book. Com. When the name comes before Facebook on the left side, then that website is legitimate. Face book can have a short component that is called application then you have face book.com.”
He noted that if someone log into a wrong website and enter his or her credentials they can be snatch and on that note attackers can get the person user names and log in to your real Facebook accounts. “This is how they (hackers) get people,” he noted.
The ICT specialist warned the masses not to receive emails from unidentified people, saying it would be detrimental to their personal security. He added that people should be mindful of clicking links from unknown people as well.
Cyber security to national security
Enlightening further, Drammeh gave an overview explanation of how cyber security ensures effective national security. He said: “We have what we call cyber warfare. Because there are countries that would launch a cyber-attack on a particular government and when that happens they do would destroy the government’s entire cyber infrastructure. For example, they can launch an attack and shut down your electrical lines, telecommunication. They can deface a government’s websites or even shut down the email communication system.
Therefore, if individuals and entities are protected from cyber attack it would also ensure effective national security.
Ismaila H. Njie, from The Gambia Cyber Security Alliance, said cyber threats are malicious forms that hackers use to create authorizes access to systems, noting in this situation the hackers can cause problems those systems.
Type of Cyber Threads
He said cyber threads include phishing and ransom
He noted that phishing is the process where attacks happen when a cybercriminal pretends to be someone and then sent emails or links to a person through emails or other social medial platforms, noting that if the person receives the message. Then the cybercriminals will get access to his or her confidential information. “This could be very serious and detrimental to the victim,” he said.
He said ransom ware is a kind of attack that hackers sent to individuals or institutions to encrypt (scramble) their data or personal information such as one’s health status.
If cybercriminals get access to such information they would request for ransom or else leak the information.
“These are all acts that hackers do to destroy individuals and organizations. Imagine if financial institutions happen to have such attacks. If those companies do not work on those days, there could be no financial transaction.
“These are the risk involved in this thread,” he said.
However, he said sensitizing the masses on cyber security is very important.
Njie noted that if someone leaves his or her devices and social media applications unprotected the person would be highly vulnerable to cybercriminals.
“If you leave your system unprotected and un-updated is a risk. So, if you leave your computer with easy access is also a risk,” he warned. He added that if one fails to protect his or her cyber communication system; therefore, there is high possibility of that person being attack by cybercriminals.
He recommended that Gambians should secure their communication systems, update their systems, have proper antivirus and have secured devices to prevent cybercriminal and physical spire from attacking them.
Chief Inspector Cherno M. Bah, ICT officer from The Gambia Police Force said: “As law enforcement officers we have series of cyber incidents that comes to our desk day in and day out. They are always treated positively.”
He revealed that there is a financial institution that encountered cyber attacked in the country, explaining that cybercriminals were able to access the financial institution’s system and manipulated its accounts.
He said the cybercriminals were at abroad but they assigned someone in The Gambia to open an account in that financial institution and save a sum of US dollars into the account. He narrated that later on, the cybercriminals manipulated the count by increasing its figures.
“If the person saves $100 the cybercriminals would increase two zeros on the account to make it $10,000. So, they will tell their partner in The Gambia to withdraw the money. And there is a particular percentage the partner would sent to them (cybercriminals),” he narrated.
He said pornography is also a rising issues in the country, saying this whereby people are film and put naked either with or without their consent and after the film these photos or videos are leaked in the social media.
He said there is need for all and sundry to know the type of photos they upload into their social media platforms.
Cyber Hygiene
Max Jonga, head of Gambia Computer Security a unit under PURA said Cyber Hygiene is a healthy behaviors online and healthy maintenance of systems. He said if cyber systems are not kept healthy it could lead to havoc.
He went on that if the critical national infrastructural holders such as the National Water and Electricity Company (Nawec), Africell, and banks do not maintain a very hygiene operating environment they could get hack.
However, the repercussion of such financial activities would be very serious to the countries socio-economy development considering the role of the private sector in nation-building.
“If institution like The Gambia Revenue Authority get hack and all their system brought down; then government revenue collections, payments, management of national revenue and border control will all go copout. And that will be very serious to the country’s social economy development,” he noted.
Jonga said: “PURA will make sure the ITC sector is well regulated as per existing cybercrimes and cyber security.”
“In any given society the private sector plays more roles in economic activity than even the government.” Therefore, he said is prudent to ensure that the private sector is given an enabling environment to make sure they play their parts in cyber security as expected.
Khaddijatou Sey, from the office of national security said: “awareness is keys on everything. Because cyberspace is the most major threat to national security that people have to be aware of. It is disheartening that most Gambians often use devices without knowing its threats to their security.”
“We have cybercrimes, cyber attack and cyber terrorism which are detrimental but people are not aware of them. That’s why we are working to make sure people are aware of these threats. Awareness creation on cyber security cannot be underemphasized. It is key and the baseline of cyber solution. There cannot be cyber security without people being aware of the risk surrounding it,” the security personnel said.
Role of CSO on Cyber Security
Amadou A Bah, president of The Gambia Cyber Security Service Alliance (GCSA) said: “The Civil Society Organization (CSO), especially the organization I represented is moving from around communities and schools to talk to the masses about online safety and cyber security. We also embarked on policy influence as we pressure MOICI to come with cyber laws.”
Role of Interior Ministry on Cyber Security
Ousman Jarju, an ICT officer from the Interior Ministry said: “Our role as a Ministry is to make sure we have good policies, laws and regulations whereby the service providers and consumers have good relationships. We also make sure lives and properties are protected. We also make sure the environment is protected to ensure people move easily without fear.”