Oceania Cyber Security Centre Executive Manager, Kartic Srinivasan, said one of the center’s key focus is to engage with different stakeholders and Telecommunication providers to assist and introduce the Cybersecurity Maturity Model.
This is a model established by the Oxford Cybersecurity center based in United Kingdom. It helps governments measure their cybersecurity maturity from their perspectives and to allow participants of the event to understand it.
Mr Srinivasan said after the 3-day session, they will wait for a 2-month report, specifically the feedbacks from the different stakeholders in helping the Vanuatu government in focusing areas from a cyber perspective. He stated that obviously, Vanuatu is one of the leading Pacific countries which regards Cybersecurity as a priority and the 2-month feedback report will help move forward with activities they want to do.
The Executive Manager said cybersecurity is very important adding that critically, over the last 10 years, kids today are essentially bond with smartphones compared to their parents, and elders need to understand the negative impacts of that. He said that it is more about education and protection online in familiarizing with what is safe and what is not.
He also acknowledged the Vanuatu Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) for providing awareness on the threats posed to communities and organizations.
“There is a need for Vanuatu and the world to look more into ICTs,” he said. “Business transactions today are different compared to the past 10 years, for e.g. bank transactions software applications for smartphones making it easier to transact money and the use of social media sites. It is important that the Government of the day look more into ICT security to prevent negative impacts from happening.
“A lot of awareness is priority to help kids nowadays in refraining from the negative impacts of the internet. It is more educating to ensure they look at right contents, basically to avoid such challenges faced in the past.
“Challenges are learning experiences which will prevent a repetition of the same thing and it will help Vanuatu determine the area of focus, in avoiding major challenges first and slowly moving in to other areas.”
Mr Srinivasan acknowledged the Office of the Government Chief Information Officer (OGCIO) for their service in Vanuatu and hopes to see more experts come in to train locals in understanding the technologies across the world.
He said threats outside Vanuatu can be exposed through internet and that Vanuatu is on the right track in focusing on cybersecurity to proper identify effective cyber strategies in addressing cyber threats.
Mr Srinivasan acknowledged the Vanuatu Government for the opportunity to collaborate through this conference and said from a cyber perspective things are looking up for the next few years.
Source: Daily Post