Government to launch Cyber Security Policy

By Deidre Fanene 16 January 2017, 12:00AM

The Minister of Communication, Information and Technology Afamasaga Rico Tupa’i said  the government plans to launch a Cyber Security Policy on the 1st of next month.

He said as part of the plan for the new Tui Cable, the biggest concern is the connectivity and he believes that as soon as the cable is connected, there will be a lot of activity.

“The cable is being built at the moment and a survey is being carried out,” he said. 

“At the moment the Alcatel Company is working on doing the marine survey of where the cable will be laid and a lot has been said about this once it comes in.

“A big issue that is of concern to us is the security of the government and the people of Samoa and so what we are preparing for is the connectivity.

“There will be a lot more activities when the cable comes in than what we have at the moment.”

He said that the cyber security policy is an important development particularly for telecom operators who need to know the protocols.

“We are working on the cyber security policy to protect the government and Samoa in terms of what protocols the government need to put in place to protect us when there is an attack,” he said.

“Right now we haven’t been attacked but we are expecting that once these activities come in, then we will be getting a lot of cyber attacks and also within the systems.

“The government, with the telecom operators has put in place a plan for filters to filter out pornographic images and many other things to protect our children.

“There was a decision made last year for each operator to have their own filters within their system to filter all of these things out before it comes out to the public.”

 “The launching of our cyber security policy will be on the 1st of February and from then onwards, it will be a matter of following the strategy that is in place to protect the country,” he said.

“The national security of the government is very important in terms so we can control anybody that wants to access our system.”

Afamasaga is adamant that the Tui Samoa Cable project will be completed by September.

“There is already a grant from the World Bank and the Asia Development Bank of USD$49 million for this project.”

“We hope to officially open the cable during the Pacific Island Leaders Forum meeting,” he said.

By Deidre Fanene 16 January 2017, 12:00AM
Samoa Observer

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