Cyber maturity under review

FIJI’s cyber readiness as a nation is currently being reviewed.

This is in preparation for the upcoming national cybersecurity strategy.

Conducted by the Ministry of Communications with expertise from Australia’s Oceania Cyber Security Centre (OCSC), the review will use the globally-recognised Cyber Security Capacity Maturity Model for Nations (CMM), with consultations taking place throughout this week.

In an interview with The Fiji Times, OCSC head of research and capacity building Dr James Boorman said its team would conduct assessment by meeting with a various stakeholders.

“The core difference between our approach and everyone else is that we come to the country and meet with a variety of stakeholders across the economy, to hear from these people, what are the real issues on the ground impacting people in Fiji,” Dr Boorman said.

This, he said, would be put in the form of a report and peer-reviewed for a period of about four months.

“After that process, we hand it to the government and the stakeholders who participated in the review, to check that we’ve captured the key issues accurately and that we haven’t missed something.

“And then, the report is finalised by the government and the government decides to use the report as it wishes.”

The review, he said, had five dimensions: a look into the country’s cybersecurity policy and strategies; citizens attitudes towards cybersecurity; professional cybersecurity education and training that are available for the people; legal and regulatory frameworks that are in place; and the practices and standards a country has for dealing with technological risks.

Fiji was one of the first countries in the world to adopt the CMM review model when it undertook its first cybersecurity review in 2015.