Cyber security workshop set for Wednesday

By John Churu, Gaborone, Botswana

“This world—cyberspace—is a world that we depend on every single day… [it] has made us more interconnected than at any time in human history.” —President Barack Obama, May 29, 2009.

The foregoing statement from the world’s most powerful leader is an admission that  digital infrastructure is increasingly the backbone of prosperous economies, vigorous research com­munities, strong militaries, transparent governments, and free societies. Thus, as never before, information technology is fostering transnational dialogue and facilitating the global flow of goods and services.

Having seen the importance of this cyberspace to humankind, the African Cyber Risk institute (ACRI) has put together a cyber security conference which will feature an esteemed team of experts. The conference will be held at the Cresta Lodge in Gaborone on the 29th of October. The workshop follows the fourth workshop in a global series of workshop on Cybercrime and Cybersecurity hosted by the US Government from the 4th to 5th June 2014 in Gaborone.

Sharon Mothusi, ACRI Project and Public Relations Assistant told the media ahead of the conference that human error was the culprit in cases involving lapses in cyber security.”After realising that 75% of all security hack and breaches occur because of human weakness, we wish to strengthen human capacity to understand the human threats and take measures to defend valuable information and critical systems,’ she said.

According to Mothusi, the main objectives of the conference include but are not limited to strengthening networking and active participation in combating cybercrime, develop strategies for combating various types of cyber crimes as well as hep delegateslearn critical strategies and practices to pevent data leakages among others.

“We also aim to share with delegates the new threats in the field of high-tech and cyber crime, exchange views on threats from social media, cloud and mobile devicesand promote the existence of our organisations.”

Conference speakers are drawn from the tried and tested presenters and ICT pratitioners in the mould of Dimitri Fouskeis, who is a respected and experienced hacker.  He is the head of penetration testing at telspace. Another notable dignitary is Dr. Chistian Ross, an expert in Hacking and IT auditingand Ethical hacking in the banking sector. There is also Marshal Potts, CEO of Jaspers Global Cyber Crime Centre in London. The organisation offers professional qualifications in In four continents.

The conference was organised on the premise that businesses and government institutions can lose billions of dollars every year to computer criminals.