The Director-General of the National Information Technology Agency (NITA), Richard Okyere-Fosu says NITA’s assessment has revealed that only a little over 30% of public sector IT networks and computers protected with antivirus, leaving the remaining 70% completely exposed to cyber threats.
“NITA’s assessment shows that just a little over 30% of government systems and end nodes (computers) have the right antivirus setup. This poses a great deal of risk to government in its agenda to fully digitalize the economy” he stated.
The NITA boss was speaking at the signing of an agreement between NITA, its long-time technical partner, Smart Infraco and global cybersecurity leader, Trend Micro to fortify government’s digital infrastructure against cybersecurity threats.
He noted that the agreement is in keeping with the Government of Ghana Enterprise Architecture (GGEA), which is a interoperability framework that outlines a standard security architecture, emphasising the mandatory deployment of antivirus software across all government systems and end nodes.
Per the agreement, Smart Infraco will install Trend’s Deep Security Solution at the two national Data Centres to efficiently deliver antivirus services to government agencies nationwide. The protection will go as far as end-terminal devices such as phones, laptops, tablets and others used by even workers to access the government network for remote work.
The NITA Boss said Trend’s Deep Security will provide comprehensive protection at both the server side and endpoint levels, including intrusion prevention, anti-malware, and integrity monitoring, safeguarding critical systems and data.
“Leveraging Trend Micro’s innovative suite, Smart Infraco will offer government organizations worry-free cybersecurity. This will include Endpoint Security for defending against ransomware and advanced attacks, Email Security for real-time protection against targeted attacks, spam, phishing, and viruses, Collaboration Security for safeguarding online collaboration tools to prevent data loss, and Extended Detection and Response (XDR) for automating threat detection and response,” he said.
He added that the deployment of the antivirus with the interoperable framework of the GGEA, would allow government agencies to share data safely with each other.
Richard Okyere-Fosu is optimistic that this partnership with Smart Infraco and Trend Micro will help boost security and also curb application risks in government systems.
Head of Sales and Commercial at Smart Infraco, Alfred Nkrow told Techfocus24, the company has taken over NITA’s infrastructure to allow NITA to stick to its regulatory role, so their role in the agreement is to be the execution agency that ensures that all the end-terminal devices used in access information from any government system, are protected and all public sector networks are also supported.
According to him, ahead of this agreement, Smart Infraco had revamped and commercialised all of NITA’s infrastructure, and also provides world-class connectivity to all public sector institutions, adding that “this new agreement is just another layer of service to ensure that public institutions are protected from cybersecurity threats.”
Under the agreement, state institutions are required to pay for antivirus and its installation at a subsidized rate, as the parties involved make their money on volumes.
Mazen Al-Adhami, Middle East and Africa Manager at Trend Micro said their role goes beyond just providing the world-class cybersecurity suit for government organizations through Smart Infraco, but also to train the staff of state institutions on how to effectively manage those systems.
“We also support from the backend and also be on standby to make our global support team available to our clients whenever they need it,” he said.
