Nigeria, one of the fastest growing Internet markets on the continent, is taking a major initiative to build a special response team to mitigate risks of threats of online risks or aggression against the country.
Technology Times can authoritatively reveal that the national cyber response force is billed to go live today in Abuja and is planned to poll resources of players in the tech security ecosystem to create an home-grown response team to manage risks, threat and attacks from the Internet.
[sh_poll poll_id=”4268027″]The National Computer Emergency Readiness and Response Team (CERRT), modeled after the global Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT), is the initiative of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), the nation’s IT implementing agency in partnership with Consultancy Support Services Limited (CS2), a technology consulting company promoted by Hakeem Ajijola, an ex-ICT Adviser to a former National Security Adviser of Nigeria.
CERRT will become the virtual equivalent of a standing army and will function by “building National cyber security readiness through fostering the development of sectorial Computer Emergency Response Teams (CERTs) and Computer Security Incident Response Teams (CSIRTs).”
CERRT will also drive the Nigerian Honeynet Project “to mitigate threats related to malicious traffic and to improve the national cyberspace security by ensuring preventive and response measures to deal with malicious threats.”
The project will link all the cyberspace stakeholders, including the government, ISPs, telcos, and critical information infrastructure.
“In order to create a strong coordination space with them, we assist them by providing a framework to share information for cleaning-up the cyberspace and tracking malicious sources”, according to the CERRT mission statement.
CERRT is envisioned to be “a trusted national information sharing and support entity to ensure a secure cyberspace”, according to its promoters who also reckon that will address attaining the national strategic interest that requires that the country uses the programme to develop, nurture and patronise a home-grown cybersecurity solutions.
According to NITDA, the CERRT ecosystem will create jobs, increasing incomes, promote knowledge generation and empowered human resources and foster confidence in the Nigerian economy, among other objectives.
The CERRT initiative is expected “to improve cyber security by coordinating information sharing and managing cyber risks for Nigeria’s national development.”
