AFRICAN CYBER CHAOS: A DISASTER WAITING TO HAPPEN
Blaise Campaore, President of Burkina Faso, and
Faure Gnassingbe, President of Togo, arrive at the
African ICT Best Practices Forum in Ouagadougou).
“Cyber security in Africa is a major problem, which urgently needs the world’s attention,“ New Security Foundation Chairman, Dr Harold Elletson, told participants at the African ICT Best Practices Forum in Ouagadougou. “Recent estimates suggest that there are now 100 million computers in Africa and, of these, over 80 per cent have no security whatsoever. The arrival of broadband in Africa will bring Africa’s cyber chaos to the heart of global networks, which will create a feeding frenzy for cyber criminals. African governments urgently need help from the rest of the world to establish appropriate legislative and technological infrastructure. If we fail to deal with the problem, cyber crime will undermine development in Africa and infect global systems, potentially causing mayhem in the world economy.“
The ICT Best Practices Forum was opened by the President of Burkina Faso, HE M. Blaise Campaore, and attended by the President of neighbouring Togo. Other participants included government ministers from many African countries, the Secretary General of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) and the Chairman of Microsoft Africa.
For more information about the conference or, if you would like to receive details of the New Security Foundation’s background brief on African cyber security, please contact info@newsecurityfoundation.org
