Africa ICT Expo'17: SMEs must comply with cyber laws - IT expert

Security and IT expert at the National Information Technology Agency Veronica Boateng has indicated that SMEs should comply with Cybercrime laws to protect their consumers against fraud and attacks.

Speaking during a session at the Africa ICT Expo'17, Mrs Boateng charged SME’s to adhere to cyber laws irrespective of their line of businesses hence suffer penalties for it.

‘’ SME’s must be mindful about their businesses. Whichever service they provide, it is important that they comply with these laws because when they are caught and the law catches up with them it won’t see them as an SME or an enterprise entity’’.

According to her, Ghana’s cyber space is protected by the Electronic Transaction Act, 2008, which seeks to protect consumers against cyber fraud and attacks, Data Protection Act, 2012 (Act 843), which provides the legal framework for the protection of personal information and the National Information Technology Agency Act 2008 (Act711) to regulate Information’s Communication Technology.

Touching on the activities of electronic fraudsters in the country,Mrs Boateng urged organisations to halt the rising electronic attacks on the financial system by implementing security standards for information security management system.

“Organisations must apply an approach that includes an adoption to best practices. The Ghanaian community must take standards like PCI DSS and ISO27001 seriously because they cannot really afford not to,” she added.