Cyber crime has been identified as a major threat to digital transformation with experts calling for global collaboration to fight the risk.
Auditor General (AG) Nancy Gathungu said with Covid-19 the world has experienced fundamental change which needs addressing new threats in the ICT sector such as cyber security in a totally new way.
Ms. Nancy Gathungu while opening the Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA) Kenya chapter annual conference in Mombasa said connectivity is happening digitally while threats are also happening digitally targeted to isolated individuals, companies and governments.
she called on the public and private sector players in the industry to work together on network security standards to respond to evolving new threats.
The ISACA summit took place at the Travellers Beach Hotel with the theme ‘Enabling the digital age beyond the curve’ attracting 150 ICT experts.
The three-day summit brought together ICT industry players to discuss issues including digital transformation, securing organizational transformation, information security and privacy and use of technology in service delivery.
Ms. Gathungu urged the public and private entities to adopt the latest digital technologies to improve service delivery and reduce expenditure.
She said a lot of big data is being collected by public and private sector players, noting that there is a need to develop strategies for the safety and security of such sensitive data.
She observed that data is at the heart of any modern business saying its protection is crucial to ensure its integrity, reputation and accessibility.
“Data collection is helping the public entities to explore some of the driving forces that can impact on quality and speed of service delivery” she said.
The AG says technology is increasingly being used to deploy essential services closer to the people, especially those living in rural and remote corners of the country.
She said in recent years the government has been automating and digitizing its key services such as E-Citizen and iTax, noting that this has gone a long way in improving efficiency and accountability in service delivery.
Ms Gathungu said an increasing number of organizations are now more than ever embracing ICT in the ‘new normal’, like accounting software solutions, to keep track of their operations.
ISACA Kenya Chapter President Antony Muiyiro said public and private sector players need to harness cutting- edge digital technologies to streamline their operations and cut costs.
Muiyiro noted that it is unfortunate that cyber criminals use modern technologies and easy access to the internet to commit crimes by hacking into databases.
“Organizations that embrace digital solutions have greater resiliency in the face of adversity such as the current Covid-19 pandemic” he said.
ISACA is a global association helping individuals and enterprises achieve the positive potentials of technology at a time it’s becoming increasingly useful within business organizations around the globe.
The conference noted that ICT technologies are helping businesses survive during the Covid-19 pandemic that has disrupted socioeconomic activities around the world.
Speakers at the ICT forum decried the escalating rate of cyber crime and fraud in the country describing it as a ‘global pervasive threat’.
The summit heard that the unabated rise of cyber crime cases in the country has the potential to impact on the future of the fast growing digital economy.
Stakeholders called for concerted efforts to confront the ubiquitous threat posed by hackers by instituting prudent risk management as ICT is increasingly becoming an enabler of business in the country.