The East African Community has been requested to improve cyber-security for the competitiveness of the ICT sector and digital trade.
This came during the ICT 4 Business, regional cyber-security webinar, organized by the East African Business Council.
It was in partnership with project Digital Skills for an Innovative East African Industry.
John Bosco Kalisa in a statement to CRN calls on the EAC bloc and business to be aware of the risk of cyber-security.
“e-commerce now plays a critical role in the economic resilience, and recovery of the EAC bloc and business be aware of the risk of cyber-security”, said Bosco.
He stated that cybercrime is set to cost the world USD.10.5 trillion annually by 2025.
The webinar deliberated on strategies to achieve cyber resilience in cross-border trade in the EAC.
“The webinar aims to explore among others the legal aspect of cyber-security on the transfer of data between countries and facilitate multi-sector dialogue”, said Simon Hochstein, dSkills@EA Project Director, GIZ.
Associate Director Anthony Muiyuro says it takes 205 days to detect a cyber-security attack.
“Ernst & Young elaborated that cyber security impacts brand reputation, leads to operation slow down intellectual property theft, and loss of money to companies. The average cost of data breach is USD 121 and it takes 205 days to detect a cyber-security attack” said Mr. Anthony Muiyuro, Associate Director, Cyber-security, and Privacy & Trusted Technology.
He urged East African businesses to map digital assets and invest in strategies to enhance cyber resilience.
Cyber-security Legal Expert, Kenya ICT Action Network calls for harmonization of the legal framework and enforcement of laws.