African Commonwealth National Cyber Risk Assessment Community

Summary

This project supports African Commonwealth countries with capacity building work packages that are tailored to help address the most critical risks and capacity gaps that were identified by the earlier National Cyber Risk Assessment project with 10 Commonwealth countries in Africa during 2019-2020.

Details

Aim

The aim of the project is to help the 19 Commonwealth countries in Africa address their most critical cybersecurity risks and capacity gaps based on National Cyber Risk Assessment (NCRA) insights.

Context

In 2019-2020, the UK’s cyber capacity building programme in the Commonwealth assisted 10 Commonwealth countries in Africa through National Cyber Risk Assessments.  This project follows up that work with support to activities that address the risks and gaps that have been identified and expands the NCRA approach to all 19 Commonwealth countries in Africa.

Further information on the earlier Sierra Leone National Cyber Risk Assessment can be found here.

Outcomes

Main outcomes of this project include:

• The competence and capability of all 16 participating African Commonwealth countries has been improved through on-line training, simulation exercises, threat intelligence updates and workshops covering cyber skills, countering cybercrime, CNI protection, testing/exercising and incident management.
• The profile/awareness of cybersecurity has been raised in all 16 African Commonwealth countries that participated in the NCRA+ project (this was verified through feedback gathered at the November conference and workshops)
• Cyber security vulnerabilities highlighted as part of the NCRA process has enabled 4 additional countries to focus on risk mitigations. The November conference training sessions and cyber attack simulations provided practical examples of cyber security vulnerabilities and mitigation measures.

Activities

• Support to the 4 existing NCRA trained countries to customise the NCRA process and tools to meet their needs for the second NCRA;
• Training and guidance for building national cyber security capability;
• A NCRA remote learning solution via a web portal.
• Delivery of an African Commonwealth capacity and community building workshop for all 19 countries in November 2020.

Additional website links

• https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-commonwealth-cyber-security-programme-case-studies
• Cameroon moves towards its national cyber risk assessment with the support of the Commonwealth – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Image courtesy of British Commission Yaounde