HUBTEL STAFF UNDERGO CYBERSECURITY TRAINING

The Cyber Security Authority (CSA) took its cybersecurity awareness campaign to Hubtel, an electronic commerce company, to educate employees on the importance of protecting their online environment.

It was part of the National Cybersecurity Awareness Month (NCSAM), which aims to raise awareness within institutions and among citizens about cultivating a healthy cyber hygiene to stay ahead of threats.

In his introductory remarks, Mr. Isaac Apenteng, a Hubel executive, stated that the institution had taken conscious efforts to hold cybersecurity training to enable personnel to be cyber wise.

He noted that October, as the month for educating individuals and companies about potential hazards and risks in the digital realm, was a chance for Ghanaians to take advantage of the NCSAM and other programmes.

Mr. Isaac Socrates Mensah, Senior Manager at the CSA's Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT), took the personnel through the subtleties of remaining digitally safe considering current worldwide trends.

He added that guaranteeing cybersecurity was everyone's job and that the government, institutions, and individuals were the most vulnerable to cyberattacks, emphasising the importance of individuals and state actors staying ahead of the curve.

Mensah discussed several worldwide cybercrime trends, including the attempted hacking of Florida's water supply system and the hacking of the Gambia's Central Bank, which resulted in Costa Rica declaring a state of emergency due to a ransomware attack.

On the local front, he noted that data from the National CERT had revealed that between 2019 and 2022, there had been a total of 40,182 public contacts, of which 3,804 were actual incidents and 36, 378 were direct advisories.

"These reports largely centred around cyber bullying, online fraud, online blackmail, unauthorised access, online impersonation, information disclosure and online child sex exploitation access, ransomware and misinformation," he said.

Mr. Mensah highlighted malware, phishing, social engineering attacks, data breaches, distributed denial of service attacks, man-in-the-middle assaults, business email compromise, advanced persistent threats, and insider threats as examples of cyberattacks.

Following that, he defined cybersecurity as the practice of protecting computer systems, networks, devices, and sensitive information from cyber threats, and he added that the process also included the three main elements known as the CIA Triad, which stood for Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability.