Experts from Egyptian CERT in Uganda to facilitate Information Security training

James Saaka with Egyptian CERT team
NITA-U’s Executive Director, James Saaka (Center), Ahmed Mashaly (Left) and Ahmed Tharwat – both from the Egyptian CERT address the media at the training in Kampala earlier today.

A team of Senior Information Security experts from the Egyptian CERT are in Uganda to train Government Agencies running critical IT infrastructure for example security officials from Bank of Uganda (BOU), Uganda Revenue Authority (URA), Security agencies such as the Uganda Police Force (UPF) Ministry of Security, UPDF  and other investigative arms of government.

The main aim of this training is to build capacity within the country for the monitoring and management of computer security incidents and the execution of proper responses to those incidents.

It is important to develop a well understood and predictable response to damaging events and computer intrusions, computer forensics is the ability to investigate such incidents and collect data in an appropriate manner to support legal processes in court. Malware analysis allows the Information Security experts to analysis malware threats and determine appropriate actions.

NITA-U in hoping all member institutions of the National CERT receive skills to enable them to respond to cybercrime.

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Last week Uganda Communications Commission (UCC), with support from ITU inaugurated the Communications sectoral Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT).

The National CERT is being developed and housed in NITA-U in line with NITA-U’s mandate with the directive for Institutions and Sectors to develop their respective CERTs under the guidance of the National CERT to address issues that are specific to these Institutions and Sectors.

A national CERT is a key component of a national approach to cyber security and is a solid building block onto which other cyber security related activities could be linked.

The establishment of the National CERT will help to ensure the protection of the nation’s Critical Information Infrastructures, assist in drafting the overall plan on the country’s approach to cyber security related issues, and thus can serve as a focal point for further building and implementing the National Culture of cyber security.

NITA-U is sponsoring an Incident Handling Training as one of several initiatives that will eventually lead to the setup of the National CERT under NITA-U. The training is part of a global partnership between our sister Governments on ICT and it will be delivered in three phases: Incident handling, Computer Forensics & Malware Analysis.