SIL: a Supporing Partner for the ITU Cyberdrill Event for Africa Region

SIL was one of the Supporting Partners for the Cyberdrill for Africa Region jointly organised by ITU (International Telecommunications Union) and Cert-Mu in Mauritius. It was a five-day regional forum which, took place at Le Meridien Hotel from 04 April to 08 April 2016.

The purpose of the Cyberdrill for Africa Region was to enhance the communication and incident response capabilities of Mauritian and African organisations as well as to ensure a continued collective effort in mitigating cyber threats among the region’s national Computer Incident Response Teams (CIRTs). By detecting and responding to simulated cyber security incidents, organisations will be in a better position to know about the vulnerabilities present in their infrastructure and how they can improve their security practices. The cyberdrill exercise was structured around various scenarios involving the most common types of cyberattacks while the sharing sessions provided a platform for cooperation and discussions on cybersecurity.

Mr Kishan Bhugul, IT engineer at SIL, spoke about the Current Trends in Cyber Attacks. Mr Bhugul pointed out that any organisation is a potential victim of a cyber attack and he explained the different stages, motives and techniques used in an attack. He also highlighted how SIL is constantly engaged in providing a wide array of services to organisations in the African region, including IT security services. SIL can eventually help organisations from security consultancy to security testing. The maintenance services at SIL includes Preventive Security Measures according to which SIL ensures that organisations have the latest security patch; that security equipment is always functional and that the organization is complying with the latest security trends. SIL also provides effective monitoring tools and reports

The absence of institutional structures to deal with cyber incidents and attacks is a major problem in responding to cyber threats. ITU has therefore been helping countries to establish their National Computer Incident Response Team (CIRT), which serves as a national focal point for coordinating cybersecurity incident response to cyberattacks in the country. ITU strongly advocates fostering international cooperation through specific programmes such as coordinated cyber drill exercises between countries in ensuring continued collective effort against cyber threats.