Your Excellency, Mr. Paul Kagame, President of the Republic of Rwanda,
Your Excellency, Mr. Blaise Compaoré, President, Republic of Burkina Faso,
Dr. Plamen Vatchkov, Chairman of the ITU Council,
Dr. Hamadoun Touré, Secretary General, ITU
Fellow Ministers,
Your Excellencies, Ambassadors,
Representatives from other UN agencies,
ITU Councillors,
ITU officers,
Invited Guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen

It gives me great pleasure to address you today, on this auspicious occasion as we discuss critical, if not some of the most important issues affecting our industry today. In fact these are issues that potentially threaten the very existence of our ICT systems.

At the onset, let me thank the ITU for championing the cause of security of our cyber environment. The enthusiasm and resultant activities, including this High Level Segment dialogue, will sure establish a strong foundation for the much needed cybersecurity. I am positive that the discussions we will hold here, are going to translate into commitments and actions that will create a safe cyber space for our nations to not only do business but ensure the security of governments as we seek to transform the lives of our people.

Cybersecurity on one hand and cybercrime the other, represent challenges that require the efforts of every individual, every nation and indeed, the whole global community. There is no doubt therefore, that the measures required to mitigate the adverse effects deserve response of equal measure. On the Internet, actions undertaken in one location can have effect in countries all over the world. Fighting cybercrime therefore, ought to be a systematic, organized and sustained process if we have to make meaningful interventions.

Your excellencies, Ladies and gentlemen. You will agree with me that we cannot resist the wave of worldwide dependency on the internet and ICTs in general. Today, we cannot talk about work, transmission of data, banking, record keeping, commerce, without ICTs. The whole society depends on it. It therefore behooves us to aggressively protect the systems in the best way possible.

ICTs form the pillar of development and are a driver for many economies. The world is experiencing networks attacks which in turn cause huge financial loses. We cannot afford at any cost to let our ICT networks, which serve over four billion users, be destroyed by a few individuals or organized groups who want to make a quick buck through crime over the net. We must not also forget that the level of sophistication of attackers is quickly becoming powerful and similarly, it requires less technical knowledge. We cannot overemphasize the need for urgent action on all fronts.

We will recall that at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), we set targets to connect more than the half of the world’s inhabitants to enable them have personal use of ICTs. The questions we ought to ask ourselves alongside is whether, those networks are credible, reliable, secure, trustworthy, riskfree, and so on. It is not only the use of ICTs that will create the momentum that we need but the sustained use of it. However, for this sustained use to occur, we must address these pertinent questions before the trust is eroded. The realization of our lack of readiness should make us rise up to mitigate any further effects of the incidences of online security breaches which rise as the number of users increase.

Your Excellencies, Ladies and gentlemen. As we speak, most users are unaware of issues surrounding internet security. In my view, this should be made a priority because efforts must emanate from the lowest level of society. Our people for the most part, understand war, crime and terrorism as traditional concepts that occur in the physical domain. Their awareness of cyberspace as the new war frontier is still limited. It is imperative that we educate the wider public to elevate the importance of information security and the need to safeguard against such vices.

At a higher level, we need to put in place legislation that will help address the cybersecurity issues from a legal point of view. In Kenya, arising from the realization that the existing legal framework is inadequate, the Government is developing a more comprehensive policy, legal and regulatory framework to among others, address issues of privacy, e-security, cybercrimes, ethical and moral conduct. It’s against this background that we have made the effort to develop ‘cyberlaws’. These are embedded in the Kenya Communications (amendment) Bill 2008, and the Electronics Transactions Bill, 2008 which is under discussion in the National Assembly.

The thrust of the legislation being developed demonstrates recognition on our part that cybercrime is real. Laws should be able to go further to facilitate investigation and prosecution of persons engaged in cybercrime both at a local and international level. National laws cannot be effective in isolation. We are working with our counterparts in the East African region to develop cross-border legal framework. However, these efforts must go beyond national frameworks and strategies, and be expanded to continental and worldwide standards that can provide a platform for consolidated response.

I am aware that during the just concluded World Telecommunication Standardization Assembly (WTSA) in Johannesburg, these issues were discussed at length and action is being taken to address these and other challenges.

The private sector in Kenya, through our national internet registry and association of Internet Service Providers (ISPs), has established a Computer Security Incident Response Teams (CSIRTs) initiative to receive, review and respond to computer security incident reports and activity.

Despite having taken these steps, we recognize the need to have more initiatives that have a wider impact. There is need for nations to be more proactive in identifying the potential cyberthreats in our own countries, and in turn having strategic alliances to deal with the vulnerabilities. Incidents like the cyberattacks in Estonia in 2007 where the internet communication was paralyzed, with government, banking, media and police websites as prime targets, can only be dealt with by concerted efforts at all levels.

On another note, it is also known that these threats could be intentional, accidental and environmental. Their elimination may not be on the horizon, but at the very minimum, we should strive to reduce their impact not only on security but likewise on the socio-economy and humanity.

Ladies and gentlemen, handling critical communication networks also demands a high level of technical knowledge and continuous capacity building. We must also strive to overcome the limited human, and institutional challenges. We need not emphasize that it is imperative for governments to join hands with private sector in order to make available, financial resources towards building the necessary capacity and competencies.

Speedy reaction is of essence, because the criminals are also getting innovative by the day. Cybercrime has many forms, including financial fraud, identity theft, spam, malware attacks, and not forgetting exposure of children to risks through online child pornography. The list is endless. We cannot claim to have the capabilities to prevent , or respond to or recover from such incidents but, where there lies a will there is a way. Our consultations and continuous dialogue on possible solutions will bear fruit if we stay committed to the cause.

The responsibility starts with us. The Secretary General has already prioritized Cybersecurity and further provided this opportunity for deliberation. Allow me to congratulate him on the ongoing initiatives which have provided a foundation for many country programmes. The world citizens out there are waiting for our direction because ICT touches on people’s lives. Let us therefore make it our goal to curb cybercrime and create the much needed peace of mind and confidence among the users of ICT.

Thank you.