Boost cybersecurity to sustain digital transformation journey: Baravilala
The focus now is to bolster our cybersecurity resilience in an evolving threat landscape to sustain our digital transformation journey.
This was the statement made by the Ministry of Communications Acting Permanent Secretary, Tupou’tuah Baravilala, while opening the fourth annual Pacific Islands Law Officers’ Network (PILON) Cybercrime Workshop at the Tanoa International Hotel in Nadi on Tuesday.
The four-day workshop is in partnership with the Fijian Government, through the support of the Council of Europe.
The theme of the workshop is ‘Combatting Cybercrime: Trends and Tools in a Changing World’ is to provide Pacific officials the opportunity to take stock of emerging trends and discuss strategies to ensure effective cybercrime legislation and operations responses. Amid the critical role of ICTs (Information and Communications Technology), Ms Baravilala said it had become even more important to safeguard the digital infrastructure from the threat of cybercrime and boost collective cybersecurity efforts.
The Fijian Government is committed to ensure a safe and secure cyberspace.
“As the Ministry of Communications we have a bird’s eye view of how the whole cyber ecosystem comes together,” Ms Baravilala said.
“From guaranteeing an enabling environment, to ubiquitous access to connectivity to digital transformation shifts, while at the same time ensuring that we have cybersecurity safeguards and that we have the measures in place to combat cybercrime.”
She sais cyber threats were increasingly becoming more cuttingedge, more multifaceted, targeted and frequent in nature.
“What this does demonstrate is the need to ensure that our cybersecurity measures are robust and agile, stronger protection tools are in place,” she said.
Fiji has 95 per cent mobile internet connectivity through 3G, 4G and 4G plus networks, and were already working on connecting the five per cent of Fijians residing in the remote and isolated communities.
“Fiji has 100 per cent digital television coverage throughout terrestrial and satellite communications,” she added.
Ms Baravilala feel’s more workshops should be conducted to improve the cybersecurity capabilities and readiness across the Pacific.