The Ministry of Communications, through the National Information Technology Agency (NITA), has launched the Security Operations Centre ( SOC), aiming to improve security of Ministries, Departments and Agencies.

The established of the new security  infrastructure comes as an additional effort by the Government to minimize Cybercrime in the country and forms part of activities to mark the 2020 edition of the National Cybersecurity Awareness Month.

Launching the Centre at a short ceremony held at the forecourt of the Ministry on Friday, October 23, 2020, sector Minister, Madam Ursula Owusu said the facility is expected to improve operational engagement and efficiency of the Computer Emergency Response Teams (CERTs) in order to achieve effective response to cybersecurity incidents affecting MDAs.

"The NITA-SOC, will work with the National CERT and the IT teams of the MDAs to ensure that all activities undertaken by MDAs within the digital ecosystem is secured and safeguarded to ensure effective delivery of services by MDAs," she said.

"The NITA-SOC will also serve as a threat monitoring infrastructure to identify threats that seek to plague the systems used by MDAs while preventing, detecting, analyzing, and responding to cybersecurity incidents."

She noted that the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic has occasioned a certain shift, from physical interactions and engagements to an increased reliance on digital platforms, which at the same time makes oraganisations susceptible to cyberattacks.

"According to analysis by the National CERT, malware-based attacks form a great proportion of all cybersecurity incidents reported by MDA’s, she said.

"Government websites have been subject to cyber-attacks including website defacements, Denial of Service (DoS) and Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS), among others. Data leakage, through hacking of computers and databases, has also been reported.

"And most surprising is how some public sector officials have also taken advantage of their privileged access to government data to leak sensitive information to achieve their malicious personal gains. As we continue to digitalize, we need to take our cyber security seriously. "

The National Cybers Security Centre has predicted that cyber-attacks were likely to escalate in the near future, especially with the increase in Internet penetration and the massive reliance on information and communications technology (ICT) devices such as mobile phones for day-to-day transactions and interactions by citizens.

The establishment of a Security Operations Centre (SOC) adds to similar interventions  the government has implemented in the last 3 and half years to improve our cybersecurity incident response across different sectors.

These include the Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) for the telecommunications sector at the National Communications Authority and the Security Operations Centre (SOC) launched by the Bank of Ghana in 2018 to address cybersecurity challenges in the financial sector.

On his part, the National Cyber Security Advisor Dr Albert Antwi Bosiako said Government's interventions in the cyber ecosystem have impacted on a number of lives across the entire country, as it now have an improved cybersecurity incident response mechanism across different sectors following the establishment of the  Cybercrime and Cybersecurity Incident Reporting Points of Contact (PoC)

"The establishment of a Security Operations Centre (SOC) at the National Information Technology Agency (NITA) marks another milestone of Government’s strategic intervention to scale up our cybersecurity readiness, he said.

"Between January and August of this year alone, more than 5,000 residents made contact with the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), through the National CERT, for guidance and advice in addressing cybersecurity issues of which most of them involved online fraud.

"Thus, the work of the National CERT through the PoC has potentially spared more than 5,000 Ghanaians from being defrauded."

The SOC is a command centre of highly skilled and talented ethical hackers and security analysts operating with defined processes and supported by integrated security intelligence technologies.

It will offer services, including network monitoring which will ensure that government networks are monitored consistently in real time and will contribute to the identification of patterns and prioritisation of problems for optimised resource and threat management, authorities say.

According to the Director-General of the NITA, Mr. Richard Okyere, the establishment of  the SOC facility marks a very significant step towards achieving the digitization agenda under the leadership and government of H. E. President Nana Addo Dankwa Akuffo-Addo.

In his welcome address, he touted Government's commitment  to ensuring a safer digital future for organisations and individuals in the country.

"The quest to ensure the provision of quality information communication technology and promoting standards of efficiency and high-quality service cannot be achieved without making sure that there is some high level of assurance of operating in a safe and secured cyber space," he said.

"One cannot overemphasize how critical, vital and relevant the establishment of this Centre is to the ICT architecture of a country.

"I believe other speakers will give us the details in their delivery so I will not like to go ahead of them."

He noted that NITA’s mandates was mainly to regulate the provision of Information Communications Technology (ICT), ensure the provision of quality information communications technology, promote standards of efficiency and ensure high quality of service.

Friday's event capped off the 3rd week of  the month-long cybersecurity awareness campaign.