Three companies have come up with an innovative solution to counter the challenge that cybersecurity in the country grapples with, one of them being lack of enough trained staff.
Strathmore Business School’s iLab in conjunction with the Audit Consulting Project Management (ACPM) and Business Consulting Kenya (BCK) have today signed a Memorandum of Understanding to have launched a Security Operating Centre at iLab Africa.
“ It is a happy moment. Kenya has come a long way because accessing the internet has not become an issue . But with it, cybersecurity has become a big threat,” says Dr Joseph Sevila, the Director of iLabAfrica during the opening of the Centre held at Strathmore University today.
As the world celebrates Cyber Security Awareness Month, Dr Sevila added that: “ The tripartite collaboration would ensure that cybersecurity skills would be imparted to the local workforce, as well as enable the opportunity to conduct research in the area.
The Hungarian Ambassador to Laszlo Mathe, says that there is potential in developing the talent pool in Kenya, in the cyber security area.
“ I think that that what is obvious is that in the African continent, Kenya is one of the fastest growing regions in the world and the 21st century will belong to Africa and those who are technologically savvy in Information Technology (IT),” he says.
Statistics from the Communications Authority of Kenya (CAK) states that there are over 100 percent of Kenyans who can be able to access the internet.
Cybersecurity is, however, a challenge that corporates in the country have to grapple with.
Other than the lack of a trained staff at 1,700 to deal with cybersecurity challenges, there are other difficulties such as attacks on Information Technology (IT) infrastructure, thieves stealing from money payment systems such as Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) as swapping SIM cards, it has become a Kshs 30 billion challenge that countries have come to grapple with, states a 2018 report by IT firm Serianu.
Furthermore, the National Cyber Security Centre has stated that there about 3.82 million threats that have been detected in the country, ranging from malware and ransomware.
Strathmore University has become the latest academic institution to join in this bandwagon , with the previous being the United States International University Africa (USIU-Africa), which in conjunction with the Cyber Security Institute signed an MoU to offer research into innovative practices in the area of cybersecurity.
Other than Kenya, Uganda has become the other East African country to concentrate in this area, with efforts being made to sign a cybersecurity agreement with Russia with the first Africa-Russia two-day summit which is being held in the European country.
Russia is not new to the issue of cybersecurity, having being accused with interfering with the 2016 American general election, by interfering with voter registration databases using the ransomware virus. There are plans by the American government to counteract future cybersecurity attacks in the 2020 general election.
