Kenya hosts talks about cybersecurity ahead of the regional CSS in Rwanda

With the regional Cloud and Cybersecurity summit (CSS) in Kigali, Rwanda, just around the corner, CreditInfo and Serianu hosted different talk sessions pertaining to fraud and Cybesecurity in Kenya.

With Serianu venting on the learning and teaching drmain and opting to train secondary school teachers on matters cybesecurity at Alliance High School, CreditInfo hosted a fireside chat about fraud and Cybersecurity at Simba Corp Nairobi, drawing together experts from the security space to elaborate on the insights for mitigating insecurity and such threats.

Serianu trusts in the role that teachers play as an important element to shape the future as children(students) who are the future for any society pass through teachers’ hands. And in a new world where computers are used to work and learn and play and for about anything else, the privacy, safety and security of data is involved.

To ensure that the security of data is not compromised, Serianu trains teachers to train students on the importance of data security and how to mitigate any threats in future. This way, the next generation is better prepared to circumnavigate around insecurity and fraud issues in real time.

Happening for the very first time in Kenya, both the events drew great attention in what was termed great attendance by attendees of the two different events.

It emerged that current cyber security practices and insights on the latest methods are critical elements that need to be identified, studied and understood. Fraud, money laundering, tax evasion, terrorist financing and fraudulent insurance claims are some of the criminal actions of which the financial sector must remain vigilant to and that must mitigate.

Nancy Kinyanjui, the Head of Analytics and Value-Added Services at CreditInfo, who sat in a panel with George Njuguna, CIO HF Group, Rose Muturi, the Regional Manager for Tala and Vincent Ngudi- Assistant Director, Cybersecurity for Communications Authority, a panel that was moderated by Ali Hussein, the Co-Founder and CEO for Fintexx, asserted that every single financial institution has been a victim of fraud in the past only that not all such cases are reported.

“About 30 billion Ksh was lost last year to fraud and cybersecurity threats in Kenya alone and that is only statictics for what was formerly reported. We lose so much to such crimes and must find a long term mitigation strategy,” said Vincent Ngudi.

Ngudi also noted that Kenya is a net importer of technology, what makes technological mitigation against some threats very expensive. He challenged Kenyans into developing technology other that importing, naming this a major reason for the lag in the uptake of threat mitigation strategies.  He also mentioned the gap in technology skillset in in the country as a contributory factor to the slow response to threats as there is only insufficient personnel in the industry hitherto.

Rose Muturi from Tala asserted on the seriousness of Fraud saying, “If fraud has not happened to you yet, it is coming.”

The panel discussed on how to mitigate threats, identify customer trends and how to capitalize on new opportunities in technology.

More about cybersecurity shall be shared during the East African region’s Cloud and Cybersecurity Summit (CSS) that will be hosted in Kigali, Rwanda on the 28^th and 29^th March 2019.