Cameroon has become the fourth African Commonwealth country to complete the National Cyber Risks Assessment (NCRA). This is the outcome of a five-month long work carried out by Cameroon’s cybersecurity agency - ANTIC with the support and technical expertise of the Commonwealth. Results of the first NCRA in Cameroon were presented 20 September 2019 at ANTIC’s Head Office during a workshop presided at by the British High Commissioner to Cameroon, His Excellency Rowan Laxton, accompanied by ANTIC’s Director General, Prof. Ebot Ebot Enaw.
Data was collected on forty-nine (49) critical assets belonging to institutions in diverse sectors like telecommunications, Internet Service Provision, energy, banking and the public sector, Prof. Ebot Ebot Enaw stated in his keynote address at the outset of the workshop.
The NCRA will help Cameroon to put in place requisite security measures to protect its critical assets thereby contributing significantly to a safer and more resilient national cyberspace, Prof. Ebot noted.
The Cameroonian cyberspace has in the past suffered from cybercrimes ranging from web defacements to skimming in which banks lost colossal sums of money amounting to over FCFA 3.7 billion about £ 5.6 million. However, with the NCRA to be carried out henceforth on an annual basis, it will help ANTIC to identify risks inherent in Cameroon’s cyberspace and forestall the upsurge of cybercrime, the Director General, affirmed.
While addressing participants at the workshop drawn from key institutions across the country, the British High Commissioner, His Excellency Rowan Laxton, saluted ANTIC for taking the lead in making Cameroon feature among the few African countries to have completed the NCRA. He hinted that Cameroon shall be invited to share its experience with some nine other African countries during a Cyber Community Building Conference in Malawi, which shall be organised by the British Government in November 2019.