Cyber
attack has been increasing significantly over the recently years. While
it is taking new approach on with more sophisticate technology, it is
now used as weapon to distract another nation’s resources and
information in a war which is termed as “Cyber War”[1].
Recently we have witnessed some cyber security taking political flavor
as some nations have been alleged over attacking each others. For
example, Iran got major attack on it nuclear plant through malware which
had intention of destructing and slowing down major operations of
nuclear production. Israel and
United states got massive web attacks which are alleged to be coming
from Iran and were targeting Israel government’s websites and Bank’s
website in United States which affected revenue of various financial
institutions[2].The
trend rapidly increasing across other countries including developing
countries like Tanzania, this is due to interconnectivity behind cyber
space[3][4][5].
In Tanzania cyber crime incidents started hitting around various public, private organizations, and government institutions. From
Jan to Nov 2012 Tanzania has been experience cyber crime which includes
massive web attacks such as that happened on Nov 2012 where some of
government websites and private company’s website were massive attacked.
Such website include, Chemi & Cotex Industries Ltd, Tanzania Olympic website , Open University website , Tanzania commission for University few to mention
Some of screen shots of the events
Figure 4: Tanzania Commission university website
Until
after recently cyber attack, Tanzania government and many corporate
hadn’t felt the impact of cyber crime in their business availability and
credibility as on November 2012
Other
incidents which include lack of availability of critical services which
include mobile service, M-Pesa, Electricity and banking service have
been affecting Tanzania customers in day to day due to cyber related
issues[9]
What has been happened in global arena in fighting cyber crime?
The fight against cyber attack has been a long time activities and now a
national interest for over one decade now. Different countries have
been reacting cyber crime by putting in place strategy and policy to
guide national infrastructure and data. Due to its complexity the
initiative is even going further to include other countries starting
from regional integration, harmonizing and forming common agenda on
fighting against cyber crime.
A
national cyber security strategy (NCSS) is a tool to improve the
security and resilience of national infrastructures and services. It is a
high-level, top-down approach to cyber security that establishes a
range of national objectives and priorities that should be achieved in a
specific timeframe. As such it provides a strategic framework for a
nation’s approach to cyber security[10].
US
was among the first country to publish cyber security strategy in 2003 ,
following 2001 terrorist attacks, other countries in Europe followed,
Estonia 2008, Finland 2008, German 2011, France 2011 etc.
Current
EU countries are in a process of harmonizing cyber security strategy to
have one strategy to safe guide the European zone[11].
What is situation in Tanzania?
Tanzania
published first ICT policy in 2003 which is more than 10 year old. This
policy is pending for updated to reflect new challenges brought by
cyber security challenges. A Tanzania Government initiative which is yet
to be implemented is to have the ICT policy updated to reflect current
cyber security challenges[12]. Therefore
current there is no cyber Security strategy for combating cyber crime
which makes our cyber space on more risk to be attacked. For example,
following incident on Nov 2012 there was no team which was prepared to
fight against cyber threat such as Computer Emergency Response Team
(CERT) which is used by other countries to fight against nation such
incidents. Though there have been some private and individual
initiatives [13] related to fight against cyber threat, but such initiatives are not adequate to fight against cyber security threats.
The
fact that many businesses include telecom companies, banking,
government and other private organizations are nowadays depending on
cyber space than before on their business processes. Without advance and
systematic process on securing our cyber space may result into
inconvenience and hence affect national economy through loss on revenue
and over head cost onto individuals, organizations and government
operations.
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