Government’s cyber-crime fight yielding results – Deputy Minister

Mr Vincent Sowah Odotei, Deputy Minister for Communications has revealed that the government is making strides in its fight against cyber-crime.

He said statistics from the Criminal Investigations Directorate (CID) indicated that the country recorded financial losses from cyber-crime to the tune of $205 million dollars as of 2018.

However, in recent times, there was a drastic reduction in financial losses, in that the country recorded a financial loss of only $7.8 million dollars. Mr Odotei made these remarks on day four of the National Cyber Security Awareness Month celebration held in Accra.

He said the celebration would promote an unending awareness for citizens to be informed about cyber-crime and its related dangers.

The Deputy Minister said government was committed to providing an enabling environment for the private sector to drive and develop cyber-crime solutions and cited the development of National Cyber Safety Policy and Strategy as a key measure government put in place to provide a resilient private sector.

Mr Odotei assured stakeholders that government valued their partnership and would continue to regard them as partners and not competitors.

He said the ministry was hopeful that one of the main outcomes of the National Cyber Security Bill would be the National Cyber Security Authority that would regulate, train and build capacities, issue certificates, give accreditations and set standards in the cybersecurity ecosystem.

The Deputy Minister noted that 50 percent of all cybersecurity operations started with unhealthy behavior from the human being, and suggested that, aside from the already existing criminal codes, it was important to develop specific legislation to tackle how to criminalize certain digital behaviors that undermined the security of citizens.

He said the government would use the Communication Service Tax to invest in combatting cyber-crime by providing infrastructure, policies, among others.

Dr Albert Antwi-Boasiako, the National Cyber Security Advisor called on government to deepen public-private sector partnerships to succeed in the fight against cyber-crime, saying, two ways by which government could promote the local industry was through the Policy Strategy, and Legislations. He called on stakeholders to share ideas in the Policy Strategy and join the advocacy to urge cabinet to endorse the Policy.

Mr Carl Amanor Sackey, the Deputy Managing Director of Ghana Community Network Services Limited (GCNET) and President of ISACA Accra Chapter said one major reason for the difficulty in fighting cyber-crime was non-reporting of cyber-crime related problems and commended the Bank of Ghana for introducing the cyber security regulation which would help financial institutions secure their cyber space.

He said cyber-crime awareness should not only be limited to the month of October, but all year round awareness creation and called on the media to use various dialects to create awareness on their platforms.

Mr Sackey called for the incorporation of knowledge on general Information Technology security in educational institutions especially at the tertiary level to provide them with practical knowledge in cyber-crime.