Cyber Defence Summit continues.. Staying ahead of the game: be proactive, predictive and preventative

10/Apr/2012

Cyber Defence Summit has been organized by Oman’s National Computer Emergency Readiness Team (OCERT), on behalf of the Information Technology Authority (ITA), and in cooperation with ITU-IMPACT and Naseba. Endorsed by ITU-IMPACT, the largest cyber security alliance of its kind with 137 members reemphasizes its importance.

The conference was opened Monday morning 2nd April 2012 at the Grand Hyatt Hotel Muscat, under the auspices of His Excellency Dr. Abdullah bin Mohammed bin Said Al Saidi, Minister of Legal Affairs and the in the presence of a number of Their Excellencies, key government officials, CEOs and other experts in the areas of information communication technology from countries around the world. Taking place under the theme ‘Defending your virtual borders’, event focused on protecting the virtual boundaries of the Middle East.

In his opening address at the summit, Dr Salim Sultan Al Ruzaiqi, the CEO of the Information Technology Authority (ITA) said: “International forums, like this Cyber Defence Summit, are important for understanding the challenges we encounter in our efforts to provide protection against network and computer attacks. This Summit comes as a continuation of the efforts exerted by different countries of the world to benefit from the experiences of leading network and computer security experts who occupy administrative positions in government authorities, banking, oil and gas organizations, and information protection service providers. We will be looking into these experiences to identify methods for coping with the challenges resulting from attacks, to which both public and private sectors are exposed with resulting gross damages and losses in key sectors of countries.

Dr. Salim Al Ruzaiqi continued, “The rapid pace of development in the ICT sector is simultaneous with evolution in the means, techniques and software used by internet pirates and information phishers to hack systems and launch spyware attacks. Recent reports from Norton/Symantec for the year 2011, include some the following statistics: 431 million people were victims of cybercrimes; 14 adults are victims of cybercrime every second, with one million cybercrime victims every day; and, annual losses due to cybercrime globally are estimated to be around 388 billion dollars - financial losses, as well as loss in productivity and time.

“Reports also indicate that the number of computer viruses introduced in a single year is expected to exceed two million. Additionally, global cyber-security spending is expected to reach $60 billion and is forecast to grow 10 percent every year during the next three to five years. Other industry reports report losses in the millions. For example, a hacker attack on Sony in May 2011 disabled its PlayStation Network for 23 days and confidential information on tens of millions of network subscribers was breached; the company estimated the cost of that attack will total $171 million.”

Speaking about Oman’s initiatives to enhance information security, Dr. Salim Al Ruzaiqi commented, “The national strategy for Oman's Digital Society, referred to as the e.oman strategy, strives to transform the Sultanate into a secure knowledge–based society, by implementing a set of initiatives in connection with building infrastructure and e-government services. In doing so, we face a host of challenges and risks relating to information security, which means necessary measures and precautions must be taken to deal with the same and, identify weaknesses and security gaps in government organizations, national infrastructure authorities and vital industrial sectors in the Sultanate.

“In this framework, the Information Technology Authority (ITA) strives, through Oman’s National CERT (OCERT), to enhance regional and international co-operation in the field of cyber security between the Sultanate and other countries through: participating in the international organizations’ efforts in global cyber security programs; obtaining membership of organizations operating in this field; encouraging various national infrastructure sectors to adopt best international security practices in every field; cooperating with similar centers in other countries in exchanging information security warnings; and, continuously host international conferences on this issue in the Sultanate,” Dr. Salim Al Ruzaiqi continued.

Ebrahim Al-Hadad, Director of the ITU Arab Regional Office, in his opening remarks said, “Over the years we have seen a recent growth in information technology and communications. Therefore, focusing on cyberspace is of great importance. The challenges faced by cyber security are many and include a lack of laws in the field of cyber security. In this regard, many initiatives have been implemented by the ITU to support security in this virtual world.”

A host of industry gurus are present and speaking at the summit. These include Suleyman Anil, Cyber Defence Head at NATO; Marco Obiso of International Telecommunications Union and Eugene Kaspersky, CEO and founder of Kaspersky Labs. All three featured on a panel discussion with Philip Victor, Director Policy and International Cooperation at IMPACT. They highlighted that cyber security is a worldwide challenge which can only be tackled effectively through cross-border and pan-regional collaboration.

This was followed by a discussion examining the role of Computer Emergency Response Teams -- the first line of cyber defence for any country’s critical infrastructure, with Dr Frederick Wamala, CISSP® Cyber Security Advisor at UK, Badar Al-Salehi, Director of Oman’s National CERT, and Lt Col (R) Husin Jazri, Chief Executive Officer of CyberSecurity Malaysia.

As day one of the summit drew to a close, Roger Cressey, Senior Vice President at Booz Allen Hamilton touched upon successful examples of tools and solutions that have worked and how they can help any organisation, regardless of where they are in the world. He concluded: “The global nature of this problem means that a solution developed anywhere in the world is helpful to anyone living in the world.”