The Minister of Communications and Information Technology Amr Talaat has delivered a talk in the Arab Security Conference 4th round, held on September 6-12, under the theme “Cybersecurity in the age of digital transformation.”
Talaat underlined that cybersecurity is an essential element for building Digital Egypt, and that achieving digital security is a shared responsibility that requires the concerted efforts of all the state sectors.
Within the framework of implementing the projects of building Digital Egypt and the efforts made to develop the ICT infrastructure and boost Internet efficiency; the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) gives high priority to cybersecurity and data security, in accordance with the national cybersecurity strategy, by setting up a national system to protect cybersecurity and building national capacities specialized in cybersecurity, added the ICT Minister.
Talaat said that the world has gone through difficult circumstances and many challenges over the past months, with the outbreak of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, which created a new trend in the map of human transactions, with technology becoming the cornerstone of business management and conducting transactions.
This has led to the increase of citizens’ interest to opt for electronic transactions, and thus the increase in the rates of using digital services. This reflects the significance of the projects of building Digital Egypt and spreading digital services nationwide and making them available through suitable outlets to all segments of society, he added.
The ICT Minister highlighted that work is underway to complete the legislative system for building Digital Egypt, as President Abdel Fattah el Sisi has recently ratified the Personal Data Protection Law, which will help enhance data security and regulate its cross-border transfers, as well as digital marketing activities.
With the acceleration of the global transition to a digital economy, in which processes, supply chains, commercial transactions, services, various bodies and institutions are digitized, cyber-attacks are expected to remain one of the major threats in the world. One of the Global Data Protection Index 2020 studies show that institutions in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa now manage 73% more data than they did last year, said the ICT Minister.
Talaat underscored that this significant increase in data volumes is accompanied by fundamental challenges for most countries of the world. The Global Risks Report 2020, issued by the World Economic Forum, ranks cyber-attacks as the second largest global risk that threatens the international economy in the next decade, especially as the global economy suffers losses amounting to USD 2.9 million every minute due to cyber-crimes, according to one of the specialized reports, he added.
The ICT Minister highlighted that with the development and accessibility of dark web tools, cyber-attacks have become increasingly cross-border, asserting that the future of our societies is determined by our ability to keep pace with digital development and determination to create an environment of trust, from Internet of Things (IoT) to cloud computing.
