Cyber security still under financed

As more business models move away from physical to cyber operations at the height of the Covid- 19 pandemic, it’s become evident that cyber health of the country is poor.

The latest Cyber security survey revealed that over 90 percent of African businesses are operating below the cyber ‘ security poverty line’.

Now constrained by the pandemic, Small Medium Enterprises ( SMEs) are particularly struggling to keep their heads above the water, let alone afford basic commodities that would assure them of the minimum security required for fending off an opportunistic adversary.

These are essentially waiting to get taken down by an attack. They are often dependent on third parties and have less direct control over the security of the system they use. In addition, they use the cheapest software they can find regardless of its quality or security.

It is important for organizations to continuously ask themselves questions including the following to determine whether they are vulnerable to security threats; what are my organizations top risks? What is the worst that can happen to my business? What do I need to do to ensure that I have secured my systems against threats?

According to the Africa Cyber Security Report, insider threats still top the list when it comes to high risks. From numerous cases reported, the group most implicated are administrators and other privileged users who are in the best position to carry out a malicious breach.

Despite the development of the National Cyber security Strategy by government in partnership with the private sector some time back, cyber crime is a real challenge in Botswana. The NCS is to provide a framework for a secure cyberspace in Botswana.

It was also aimed at the public, to raise awareness and build capacity among them to safeguard against cyber threats, for the private sector and government to be prepared to prevent, defend and act against any cyber attacks. NCS is also expected to enable the government and other stakeholders to establish appropriate measures that would ensure Confidentiality, Integrity and

Availability ( CIA) of networks, systems and data as ICT services are offered to the public.

The International Telecommunication Union ( ITU) Global Cybersecurity Index 2020 ( GCI) recently ranked Botswana 12th out of 43 African Countries, and 88th out of 182 countries globally.

The GCI is an initiative of the ITU, the UN specialized agency for Information and Communication Technologies ( ICT). It measures adherence to cybersecurity commitments by Member States of the ITU across five pillars - Legal measures; Technical measures; Organization measures; Capacity development measures and Cooperation measures. Each of the pillars is scored out of a maximum score of 20.

Botswana performed strongly on the Legal, Organizational and Capacity development measures attaining scores of 16.4, 14.16 and 13.23 respectively. The country still needs to improve on the Technical and Cooperation measures.

Botswana’s improvement in GCI ranking follows its approval and implementation of the National Cybersecurity Strategy in October 2020. Pursuant to the implementation of the Strategy, Botswana established the National Computer Incident Response Team ( BWCIRT), the National Cybersecurity Risk Assessment ( NCRA) of the Critical National Information Infrastructure ( CNII) and drafting of the National Cybersecurity Act to enhance its capability in addressing the issues of cybersecurity.