The Kenya National Computer Incident Response Team Co-ordination Centre will be in charge of advising and co-ordinating responses to Internet security incidents.
The acting Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK) director general Francis Wangusi and International Telecommunication Union (ITU) secretary-general Hamadoum Touré signed the Sh36.2 million project in Geneva last week.
The project would create a team to deal with online crimes from a central desk.
Currently, each ministry handles its computer or Internet security separately, which has exposed them to cyber attacks, ranging from defacement to hacking of government websites.
Security
Within the past year, more than 2,000 websites have been hacked.
“CCK will discharge its mandate of putting in place an enabling online environment for individual Internet users, the government organisations and private businesses,” said Mr Wangusi.
He added that the commission will meet 70 per cent of the project cost and work closely with the ITU to implement it.
The UN agency will fund about 30 per cent of the total cost.
Initially, ITU will train staff to manage the project and oversee the overall implementation, supervision, monitoring, co-ordination and evaluation of the initiative, after which the agency would hand it over to CCK.
The will last for about six months.
The regulator will also liaise with the local Computer Incident Response Teams (CIRT) to gather and disseminate technical information on computer security, conduct research and facilitate the development of public key infrastructure and training on cyber security.
Dr Touré, lauded Kenya for its deep information technology penetration and for taking the lead to ensure confidence in online transactions through chairing the EACO Cybersecurity Taskforce, and now in partnering with the ITU, to implement a sound cybersecurity management framework.
The centre would be established according to the Kenya Information and Communications Act, and guided by the ITU national CIRT country readiness assessment report adopted during the 2010 EACO Congress.
Crimes
The ITU is supporting Kenya under the Global Cybersecurity Agenda aimed at enhancing confidence and security in the information society.
The Global Cybersecurity Agenda builds upon five pillars including legal measures, technical and procedural guidelines, organisational structures, capacity building and international cooperation.
The UN agency says the nature of online threats have evolved over time from simple virus attacks in the 1980s to sophisticated and organised cyber crimes aimed at financial gains including fraud, identity or trade-secret theft.
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