Leading insurance broker, Minet Limited, on Wednesday, launched an awareness campaign about Cyber Risk Insurance, at Sheraton Kampala Hotel.
At the event themed, “Cyber Risk Awareness and Management,” Mr Maurice Amogola, the Minet Uganda, Chief Executive Officer, noted that everyone was vulnerable to cyber-attacks so long as they used computers and phones, especially smartphones.
“Cyber risk has become a leading issue for many organizations due to the exponential internet growth and spread of ICT infrastructure. Hacked devices, crashed websites, breached networks, denial of service, copied emails, stolen credit card data among other fraud-like ICT incidents have become commonplace,” said Mr Amogola.
Adding: “Uganda loses over USD $42 million to cybercrime annually as per the Uganda Cyber Security Report 2017. No organization is assured of total security from cyber risk. In an active legal and regulatory environment and the evolving cyber threat landscape, forward-thinking companies are taking proactive steps to assess and transfer cyber risk.”
Minet Group is a trusted Pan-African advisor currently operating in 10 countries on the continent.
As the largest AON Global Network correspondent, Minet has access to a network of over 50,000 professionals in more than 120 countries, worldwide.
And with the $42 million only representing only a fraction of cybercrime loss in Uganda, Mr Amogola feared that the real cost of cybercrime would be much more.
“Only a fraction of cybercrime loss is reported in Uganda mainly due to fear of brand reputational damage and also lack of a clear legal regime addressing the vice,” he noted.
Ms Winnie Kiwuwa, the Chief Operations Officer, Minet Ltd, said that the brokerage firm was obliged to caution its clientele about looming dangers and risks , and that the time was now ripe to shine the spotlight on cyber risk, with ever-growing information technology infrastructure and activities.
“Cyber Insurance was launched in Uganda two years ago, but never took off. Minet is now taking a collaborative approach to create awareness, work with clients to assess, analyse and mitigate the risk. Minet will offer an end to end solution to the cyber risk,” said Ms Kiwuwa.
In his keynote address, ICT Expert, Mr Noah Baalessanvu, the Chairman, National Information Security Advisory Group, noted that companies and organizations needed to create departments solely dedicated to handling cyber risk, if they were to adequately address it.
“Information technology should no longer be a preserve of one IT guy somewhere in the office. ICT now needs similar or even more attention like that given to the accounts or human resource departments as most organisations are increasingly running their operations using ICT infrastructure,” said Mr Baalessanvu.
Dr Elly Karuhanga, the Chairman, Minet Ltd, and a partner at law firm, Kampala Associated Advocates (KAA) called for the urgent enactment of laws and regulations protecting the privacy of institutional and personal data.
“While technology keeps growing and evolving every day, our legal regime is hardly shifting. We need the Data Protection and Privacy Bill to quickly be passed into law so that we can sufficiently protect ourselves from cyber risk,” said Dr Karuhanga.
Ms Zulaika Mirembe Kasajja, also a partner at KAA and a specialist in ICT Law, echoed Dr Karuhanga’s remarks, however, adding that passing the law would not be enough, as it would need constant review as well, to match the ever changing nature of the ICT landscape.
Mr Bernard Obel, the acting Director Supervision, Insurance Regulatory Authority encouraged insurance underwriters to join Minet in raising awareness about cyber risk.
