African security officials discusses ways to combat cyber crime in Khartoum
November 8, 2015 (KHARTOUM) – The Committee of Intelligence and Security Services of Africa (CISSA) has commenced a regional workshop on cyber crime Sunday in Khartoum with the participation of more than forty nations.
He said the fight against cyber crimes needs national, collective and moral responsibility to raise awareness about the risks and dangers it poses to individuals and states, calling for the importance to develop legislations and laws to combat terrorism.
Sudan’s chief spy further noted that cyber crime represents a serious security threat, pointing to the need for concerted regional and international efforts to combat it.
He said that Sudan established several research centres and accommodated large numbers of smart young people in the NISS in order to address the cyber crime.
For his part, Sudan’s minister of information Ahmed Bilal Osman called for confronting the “wicked persons” who are taking advantage of the electronic development to inflict harm on the society and the individuals, stressing the need to protect security and defence systems against penetrations by amateur or hard-core pirates.
He also warned that young people could fall prey to criminal groups that use them in cyber crimes in order to obtain sensitive information.
The representative of the African Union Commission (AU) Abu Al-Gasim Wan, for his part, said the internet is being used by terrorist and criminal groups to plan their crimes and recruit members to commit horrific crimes against individuals and states.
He pointed that the terrorist groups recruited dozens of young people through the internet according to reports of several research centers, saying that several African children became vulnerable to dangers of the cyber crimes such as pornography.
“The worst of those crimes take place in Africa [due to the fact that] 60% of the population in the continent uses the internet,” he added.
Wan disclosed that revenues from internet use across the world reached $1 trillion, saying that Africa and the Middle East contribute 2,6% of those revenues.
The CISSA was established in August 2004 in Abuja, Nigeria to close the existing void in the continental security architecture on intelligence matters. This was borne out of the compelling need to assist the African Union (AU) to deal effectively with multifaceted intelligence and security challenges confronting the continent.
(ST)