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Regional Cyberdrill for Africa Region

BACKGROUND

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and INTERPOL are committed to enhancing the cybersecurity readiness, protection, incident response capabilities, as well as counter cybercrime capabilities of their Member States and Member Countries in the Africa Region. To achieve this, an ITU-INTERPOL Regional Cyberdrill Exercise for the Africa Region, a simulation exercise designed to test and improve the region's collective response to cyber threats, is being organised in collaboration with Ghana’s Cyber Security Authority (CSA).

Over the past decade, the ITU has organised more than 45 Cyberdrills globally, involving over 160 countries. INTERPOL, through the African Joint Operation against Cybercrime (AFJOC) project, leverages on its expertise in international police cooperation to assist its Member Countries in Africa as they conduct cross-border cybercrime operations. Ghana’s Cyber Security Authority, a hub-country of the implementation of the Global Action on Cybercrime Enhanced (GLACY-e), is mandated to build a resilient digital ecosystem, secure digital infrastructure, develop national capacity, deter cybercrime and strengthen cybersecurity cooperation. This combined experience and expertise will ensure a valuable learning experience for participating African nations.

OBJECTIVES

ITU:

Enhance the cybersecurity readiness and resilience of African CERTs/ CSIRTs and National Cybersecurity Centres.
Promote the adoption of international cybersecurity standards and best practices in the Region.
Facilitate regional collaboration and knowledge sharing on cybersecurity issues.

INTERPOL:

Support international cooperation in combating cybercrime by assisting Member Countries investigate and disrupt cybercrimes, highlighting the regional cyber threats identified in the INTERPOL 2024 African Cyberthreat Assessment Report.
Facilitate the exchange of information and intelligence among Law Enforcement Agencies in the Region. Encourage the use of the INTERPOL Cybercrime Knowledge Exchange (CKE) Platform to share resource information, including funding opportunities, technical tools, and training programmes, between ITU and INTERPOL members.
Enhance participants’ operational readiness in preparation for upcoming cybercrime operations.

CYBER SECURITY AUTHORITY:

Enhance information sharing among Regional CERTs/CSIRTs and law enforcement agencies.
Assess the readiness of participating CERTs/CSIRTs, cybersecurity professionals, and law enforcement agencies in the event of a cyber threat.
Build the capacity of participating CERTs/CSIRTs, cybersecurity professionals, and law enforcement agencies.

The ITU-INTERPOL CyberDrill is designed to provide participants with focused sessions that revolve around four main thematic concepts:

Reflect, Share, Learn, and Practice.

Reflect: Bring together the global cybersecurity community to review major regional cybersecurity trends and consider improvements based on the five pillars of ITU Global Cybersecurity Agenda (GCA) and The Global Cybersecurity Index (GCI).
Share: Promote knowledge sharing of beneficial communication networks, and exchange funding stream resources.
Learn: Build capacity for the CSIRT communities within incident response and critical information infrastructure protection (CIIP).
Practice: Test operational resiliency key concepts across CSIRT/CIRT/CERT community.

DOCUMENTS

	Available soon		Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre, Accra-Ghana 02-03 September 2024: Learn 04 September 2024: Reflect and Share 05-06 September 2024: Practice
	Invitation letter (English, French) Draft Agenda Practical information		Registration
	Speakers

Note: To register for onsite participation, an ITU User Account is required. Guidelines for creating, resetting, or updating your profile are available here. Creating a profile does not automatically register you for the event; please complete the registration process after creating your account.

WHO SHOULD ATTEND

Day One and Two are only open to team members from National CSIRTs/CERTs/CIRTs, the National Cyber Security Authorities, National Cyber Security Agencies, as well as law enforcement officers specialising in cybercrime investigation and ITU member states.

Day Three, the Regional Cyberdrill, is open to national CSIRTs/CERTs/CIRTs, Ministries, regulators, telecommunication operators, academia and educational institutions, telecommunication equipment manufacturers, research and design institutes, software developers including other interested stakeholders of the ITU Member States, law enforcement officers and sector members in Africa.

Day Four and Five are open to technical teams from National CSIRTs/CERTs/CIRTs, the National Cyber Security Authorities, National Cyber Security Agencies, as well as law enforcement officers specialising in cybercrime investigation.

ORGANIZERS & PARTNERS

Organizers

Host