The Director-General of the National Information Technology Agency (NITA), Dr Richard Okyere-Fosu, has urged the public, especially institutions, to take responsibility for their cybersecurity by investing in securing antiviruses for their computers and digital systems.
Speaking during a signing ceremony in a partnership arrangement between NITA and Smart Infraco Limited for the provision of antivirus services for the government and its institutions and agencies, Dr. Okyere-Fosu, said antiviruses are needed to safeguard the gains attained in the country’s digitalization journey.
“Ghana’s digitalization has now reached a stage where the whole economy is underpinned by digital infrastructure and applications and the cost to the nation anytime any of these systems and applications are unavailable is now very significant.
“A case in point is the internet outage we experienced in mid-March of this year. The risk these systems and applications pose to our economy and daily lifestyle is ever-growing and we as a nation need to take deliberate steps to properly profile the risk element and have a comprehensive mitigation measure that is forward-looking as part of our national business continuity plan.”
Dr. Okyere-Fosu also disclosed that just a little over 30 per cent of government systems and computers have the right antivirus setup and therefore urged government agencies to take advantage of the antivirus arrangement to secure their systems.
“The government purchased Trend Micro services some years back as part of the deployment of the eGovernment infrastructure. This partnership rides on the back of this long-standing relationship and even deepens if further by choosing the Managed Service Provider (MSP) approach which is a more cost-effective and value-for-money approach to government.
“We will encourage all government agencies to take advantage of this service and secure their environment and stay compliant with GGEA [Government of Ghana Enterprise Architecture] and GIF [Ghana Interoperability Framework].”
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