Staff of the Constitutional Council are currently being equipped with skills that would enable them to preempt cybercrime and build a sane cybersecurity culture. This is the crux of a three-day awareness-raising seminar which kicked off on Wednesday in Yaounde organised by ANTIC in keeping with its ongoing cybersecurity crusade that seeks to shield state institutions from menacing cyber threats.
Addressing participants at the outset of the seminar, ANTIC’s Director General, Prof. Ebot Ebot Enaw, said the seminar falls in line with ANTIC’s on-going drive against cybercrime which seeks to foster the resilience of the human factor, which is the weakest link in the cybersecurity chain. He added that it seeks to equip staff of the Constitutional Council with relevant skills needed to build a cybersecurity culture that prioritises best practices capable of minimising vulnerabilities and associated risks that could expose them as individuals or institution to cyber-attacks.
He enjoined the council’s staff to watch out for scamming, fakenews, phising, identity theft, web-defacement and malware instrusions which are some recurrent cybercrimes committed on the Cameroonian cyberspace. Scamming, he noted is top in the list and represents about 61 percent of cybercrime cases recorded in 2021 with financial losses estimated at FCFA 6 billion.
With regard to fakenews the Director General stated that ; “It has been established that the propagation of fake news in Cameron is often rife during electoral campaigns wherein political actors deliberately misinform and manipulate public opinion in a bid to influence the choices of the electorate.” This cybercrime has the potential to jeopardize national unity and peaceful coexistence.
It in response to these challenges driven by digital transformation and the ever-changing ICT landscape, that it becomes compelling for the Constitutional Council to adopt a cybersecurity culture with a view to minimizing exposure its information systems and terminals such as computers, smartphones and tablets to cyber-attacks, the Director General underscored.
Despite these challenges, Prof Ebot Ebot invited the Constitutional Council not to hesitate to adopt and integrate digital solutions in their processes taking into cognizance the fact that ICTs have emerged in recent years as key drivers of socio-economic growth thanks to their cross-cutting nature and their ability to optimise processes.
