The confidential data of the State of Cameroon are still targeted by hackers.This situation is the consequence of several shortcomings raised during the National Forum on Cybersecurity and the Fight against Cybercrime which ended on October 14, 2022 in Yaounde.
Cameroon does not have control over its national digital data, according to the report of the second edition of the National Forum on Cybersecurity and the Fight against Cybercrime held on 14 October in Yaoundé. The cause: “the non-existence of an authority for the protection of personal data; the anarchic management of state data; the non-existence of a dedicated state data centre; the non-existence of a specific framework related to the activity of digital investigation; the absence of a monitoring structure in terms of cybersecurity“, notes the report of this meeting organised by the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications.
For more than ten years, the government has been engaged in a fierce fight against cyber criminals. This fight is reflected in concrete terms by the establishment of several legal instruments, but also by the erection of certain infrastructures housing digital services developed to counter the advance of this scourge.
These include the implementation of a legal and regulatory framework through Law No. 2010/012 of 21 December 2010 on cybersecurity and cybercrime in Cameroon, the development of nearly 20,000 km of fibre optics, the technical strengthening of the National Agency for Information Technology and Communication (Antic) through the establishment of an alert and response centre, and the creation of a network of cybercriminals.
Although commendable, these initiatives have not been able to curb the hackers’ ardour. According to data from Antic, cybercrime caused financial losses of 12.2 billion CFA francs to the Cameroonian economy in 2021. Also according to this agency, 27,052 vulnerabilities were identified in the computer security systems of public and private structures (ministries, telecoms operators, banks, public administrative institutions) during the same year.
For more than ten years, the government has been engaged in a fierce fight against cybercriminals. This fight is reflected in concrete terms by the establishment of several legal instruments, but also by the erection of certain infrastructures housing digital services developed to counter the advance of this scourge.
Ministry of Post and Telecommunication
According to data from Antic, cybercrime caused financial losses of FCFA 12.2 billion to the Cameroonian economy in 2021. Also according to this agency, 27,052 vulnerabilities were identified in the computer security systems of public and private structures (ministries, telecoms operators, banks, public administrative institutions) during the same year.
The two days work led to the formulation of a number of recommendations which, for the most part, call for the resolution of the problems identified . These include: “Intensifying the awareness campaign for users of national cyberspace on the legislation in force on cybercrime, updating the legislation in force, setting up a legal mechanism to compel public and private administrations to implement the recommendations resulting from security audits, setting up a personal data protection authority, and setting up a dedicated government data centre“.
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