source: Tonga Govt news portal

The Asia Pacific Network Information Center (APNIC) and the APNIC Foundation are visiting Tonga for consultations with key stakeholders. As part of the visit the team will gather input from network operators, the private sector, public enterprises and government ministries to scope a technical training plan that supports the development of the internet in up to five Pacific Island economies, including Tonga. The consultation process also seeks advice on how technical training for network operators can enhance their capacity to reap the benefits of the increased connectivity facilitated by the deployment of submarine cables and other connectivity initiatives.

One of the project’s aim is for countries like Tonga to have an open, stable and secure internet run by local network operators who are well equipped with the necessary skills to manage the network.

A common theme identified by IT professionals during the consultations was the need for more training in network monitoring and security. The technical training plan will support the development of training workshops in 2020, but taking advantage of the opportunity, a three-hour hands-on tutorial on network monitoring and packet analysis was quickly organized by the team in collaboration with CERT Tonga.

APNIC Senior Network Analyst and Technical Trainer Mr. Warren Finch conducted the tutorial. The event was attended by more than 30 local system and network administrators from private sector, government ministries and public enterprises.

“Tonight was a result of talking to different people that we’ve met through this week and working out that a lot of people were interested in network monitoring and security. This session was pretty impromptu, but the team was really excited about providing a training opportunity there and then. Is not that often that we get to respond to a community need so quickly, so we are glad it was possible to do” said Cherie Lagakali, project manager for the APNIC Foundation.

The tutorial focused on examining elements involved in establishing and maintaining security for a network and building familiarity with the operations. Participants were taken through the practical approach to Overview of Intrusion Detection systems, Packet Analysis using tcpdump and Session and Signature Analysis using Security Onion (a free and open source Linux distribution) for intrusion detection, enterprise security monitoring and log management.

Participants were also introduced to packet analysis and different tools critical to dissect network packets related to security incidents.

The tutorial was facilitated by APNIC staff as part of an APNIC Foundation project funded by the Australian Cyber Cooperation Program. The event was supported by the Australian Government funded CERT Tonga Development Support Project and the Ministry of MEIDECC.

GPD Cybersecurity Workshop for Stakeholders in the Pacific session summary by PICISOC Board

Earlier this month PICISOC board members Anju Mangal, Andrew Molivurae and Cherie Lagakali took part in a Stakeholder cybersecurity workshop in the Pacific. The one-day event was organized by Global Partners Digital in collaboration with the University of South Pacific (CROP ICT); Asia Pacific Network Information Centre (APNIC), the Pacific Community (SPC) and the Oceania Cyber Security Centre (OCSC).

The keynote speaker was Hon. Siaosi Sovaleni, Minister for Education and Training, Tonga (Former Deputy Prime Minister of Tonga). Cherie facilitated the second session called Cybersecurity: state of play in the region and current priorities.

Participants broke off into 3 groups to discuss:

• What is important
• What is being done
• What is missing (gaps)

Below are points from the group discussions:

1. What is important:

–       Increasing Public awareness

–       Stakeholder engagement: moving away from single reliance on government. Making everyone able and aware so that they can protect themselves

–       High level general awareness by public and community

–       Communication strategies from the beginning

–       Building TRUST

–       Educating leaders and improving their knowledge

–       Clarity around the role of the CERT

–    Sharing information between countries in the region to not duplicate efforts

–   The need to continue collaboration and coordination between funders, implementers and beneficiaries

–     Development of legislative frameworks, such as cybercrime, came up as a priority to further implementation of national cybersecurity strategies

• What is being done: (Broken down by countries represented)
  PNG

Legislation/Policy

• Drafting cybersecurity policy
• Established cybercrime Act 2014

Infrastructure/institution

• PNGCERT
• Nat Cyber Sec Center (2018) for APEC – result of MoU w/ PNG & AU

Focus

• Finalize cybersec policy followed by cyber sec strategy

Awareness Raising Activities

• Cybercrime Act but little being done on awareness, need police training
• Need to create awareness of existing institutions
• Online safety; had session w/ PNG Council of Churches
• Good means to spread message
• Lots of concern b/c congregation being bullied
• Private-Public Partnership

Tonga

Update cybercrime bill (last one in 2003)

• Drafted and with Cabinet at the moment

CERT Tonga established

• MoUs with other Pacific CERTs, other cybersec institution

Signed Budapest Convention

Capacity building training (especially with APNIC)

Awareness Raising Activities

• Mainly done by CERT team
• Within government
• Towards society
• Host training in villages/outer islands for end-users
• Small CERT team so Women in ICT offer to help assist in awareness raising for schools, etc
• Social media heavily used for awareness raising

Nauru

2016 Cybersecurity crime act (involved all departments)

2007 User policy Act

No established international PoC

• just joined PacSON (last month)

Working to establish int’l CERT

• Cybersecurity awareness team being created
• Work on RFC 2350

Awareness Raising Activities

• Focus on awareness raising of govt networks (target of most threats)

– Govt CERT main focus will be to be poc for all govt

– Give presentations to departments

– Not do response, but just awareness for the time being

Samoa

Nat Cyber Sec Strategy 2016-2021

• Ministry of Police, AG, Regulator… many involved

Midst of launching CERT

• Finalize to be launched soon

Current chair for PaCSON

• Ministry of Comms
• Technical Working Group (TWG) – key ICT ppl from each Ministry
• Soon expand to State Owned Enterprises

National ICT Steering Committee (Chaired by PM)

• Good to have top level involvement/support

TWG helps to fill CERT functions in the meantime

Feb? attack on govt network – TWG mobilized

• No separate cybercrime law, but under crimes act include misuse of electronics…/computer crimes

Libel Law 2018 – very controversial

• In response to a lot of the issues on social media (specifically views on government/politicians)
• Freedom of Opinion v. Undermining Government/traditional rules of being respectful… many don’t accept the law
  Awareness Raising Activities
• Not many IT policy people, but strong ICT community
• Not wide consultations
• tend to only invite technical people
• So less awareness out there
• Need to include more education/society focused folks
• Currently discussing cyber legislation and confidentiality of info legislation;best to widely consult
• Recently launched ICT association… awareness included in set of goals

Key focus: don’t dumb down the users, first defense in any kind of activity in the Internet

• Ex: NZ CERT language very easy to digest: need to be very careful about the language that we use (need comms trainings!)
• A lot of focus on social media, which isn’t CERT area, so need help to keep conversation towards cybersecurity not content… careful content, script to help guide discussion
• Tendency for Samoa to contextualize policy… Samoan version to help community to learn the
• Cybersecurity strategy: no Samoan version so people find it hard to understand it

Vanuatu

2013-16 National ICT Policy

• Activist push for civil rights and how civil society could use the space to promote what they do
• Policy currently under review

Govt taking big steps to fight crime (ex: Chinese nationals deported about last month due to cybercrime activities in VU)

Need more work on bullying

VU active PaCSON member

CERT VU operational

Awareness Raising Activities?

Regional Initiatives

• PaCSON
• APNIC

Final notes on what is currently being done

• Cultural tendency to not asserts self: need to say what you want! Not be controlled by outside agenda
• Importance to translate to local language, but often the words (the very concepts) don’t exist!
• A lot of efforts to do together
• Help assertiveness: series of training that focus on what do you want next and actual follow-up. Target the same group, something to look forward to
• Language is still too technical, little understanding of wider issues/interests… need to bring more folks to the table
• Little conversation, so people accuse each other of not working
• lots of work being done, just in silos
• Talk about inclusiveness, but not fully inclusive of villages, especially illiterate/women/etc

• What is missing
• Incident Response Teams: Some countries do not have a CERT/CSIRT and whilst there are government departments or groups trying to fill the gap, they don’t have the mandate or resources to be effective.
• Cybersecurity awareness is something that still needs to improve, with ad-hoc programs but need for a coordinated and sustained approach. This needs to target end users as well as executives and senior officials to try a build a cyber-safety / cybersecurity mind-set.

• Gap between the Technical and Non-Technical (Policy) community in terms of communication and understanding/approach to cybersecurity issues.
  
• More work is needed to build an appreciation of the scope of cybersecurity and what it means to be cyber secure for a country.

a.       A view was that Digital Human Security needs to be at the Centre and to determine what values we need to defend in cyberspace.

b.        Also acknowledgement of the complexity of cybersecurity capacity challenges and that no single mechanism or intervention can address all issues.

• Absence of regulatory frameworks
  
• Even where cybercrime legislation exists, more work is needed to build capacity across the criminal justice system and law enforcement to enforce such laws.
  
• Challenges with knowledge development and retention and talent drain from Pacific Island countries.
  
• Need for improved regional coordination.
  
• Acknowledging that some cybersecurity issues are global challenges that require global solutions.

Cybersecurity Capacity Building / Awareness Raising

1.         Priorities

• Need to complete a vulnerability assessment in order to inform which cybersecurity capacity building areas should be prioritise to minimise cyber harm.

• Need to address resource constraint issue.

2.         Lessons

• Leveraging mobile technology and social media to reach large audience for lower cost through Facebook Live awareness videos

• Capacity building needs to be for both Government and Non-Government actors.

3.Challenges

• “Western” Social Media not compatible with Pacific Island Communications and Decision Making culture and traditions.

• Issues are manifesting in to physical violence and consequences.

• Need for a regional voice to lobby and get support from Big Tech to help mitigate the risks associated with Facebook and other tech adoption.

The session concluded with presentations from Elvin Prasad (lead of CROP ICT Working Group at the University of South Pacific) on current cybersecurity trends in the region and Matthew Griffin (Research Fellow at the  Oceania Cyber Security Centre) a summary of key takeaways from the maturity assessments that the Centre undertook in countries in the region.

Source: Solomon Times

youSave members can now make deposits into their accounts with Solomon Island National Provident Fund (SINPF) through their mobile phones, using mobile top ups (airtime credit).

Instead of having to visit an SINPF office or agent for deposits, this new service from SINPF provides easier and safer access for members anytime and anywhere in Solomon Islands. The new service also allows members to track their savings through free balance checks, which helps in planning, tracking and meeting youSave members’ savings goals.

This service is a first of its kind in the world; allowing Solomon Islanders to use airtime credit to deposit funds into their pension savings accounts held with the SINPF.

In 2017 SINPF, in close collaboration with the Central Bank of Solomon Islands (CBSI), and with support of the Pacific Financial Inclusion Programme (PFIP), launched a new voluntary saving scheme, called youSave. Designed specifically for the self-employed and those working in the informal sector, youSave enables the informal sector to build a safety net for the future. youSave has proven to be very popular, with now already close to 15,000 members.

However, depositing savings at the limited number of SINPF access points (only three offices countrywide) is not only costly and time consuming, because members have to travel far to visit one of the SINPF offices, or wait for the SINPF staff to go to the markets to collect deposits.

Therefore, CBSI and SINPF, together with mobile network operators Solomon Telekom and Bmobile are launching this unique digital savings channel called ‘youSave LoMobile’. Through the use of the mobile phone members can make deposits by entering *673#.

This service can be accessed even via a very simple mobile phone, and it does not require data connection. For this reason, the service is available wherever there is mobile coverage from Solomon Telekom or Bmobile in Solomon Islands.

The Central Bank of Solomon Islands (CBSI) has been spearheading innovative initiatives to spur the development and adoption of digital channels. “We are really supportive of this new mobile service from SINPF, because it will really improve access and usage of long-term savings products, especially for those communities of Solomon Islands that do not have bank branches and agents”, according to Luke Forau, the new Governor of the Central Bank.

SINPF has set up a call center where customers can resolve any possible issues. Members can call 673, free of charge, for more information or questions.

Read the article as originally posted on solomontimes.com

By James Ah Wai (As originally posted on APNIC Blog)

Last Thursday, members of the Samoa Information Technology Association’s (SITA’s) Executive Team met for the first time in Apia to discuss several projects and opportunities following SITA’s inauguration last month.

More than 170 locals have registered their interest in becoming a member of SITA in the last four weeks, the majority of whom are professionals working in the ICT industry, which SITA has been set up to act on behalf of and assist with strengthening and developing the use of technology in Samoa.

Registering all of Samoa’s ICT professionals is our first step towards bringing together all major stakeholders (local government, private sector, civil society, and the community) to discuss the challenges arising from digitization across the public and private sectors. By understanding the challenges of major Internet and technology actors we can then form possible alternatives to mitigate them, as well as discuss ways to collaborate on new projects.

We value the importance of this multistakeholder approach. We’ve followed this closely through APNIC and the Internet Society, both of which have assisted in our journey thus far.

Rewind 12 months

The idea to establish such an association was first raised during a breakfast meeting with APNIC’s Director General, Paul Wilson, at APNIC 46 in New Caledonia. I was one of a cohort of Samoan colleagues who received an APNIC fellowship to attend the meeting, where we discussed the importance of having an ICT association to facilitate discussions between the public and private sectors.

We came back from the meeting with the idea and started talking to other Samoan IT colleagues about it. Amazingly everyone had the same mindset and passion to establish such a neutral member-based association, including the Government of Samoa, which provided valuable assistance during the early development and consultation phase.

Through the consultation process we realized the importance of promoting proper conduct and as such the need for ethical standards. We have to perform our role with honesty and integrity because it is important to have a sense of trust and comfort from our community. We’re grateful for the guidance provided by the Pacific Island Chapter of Internet Society (PICISOC) in this process — particularly the code of conduct that we’ve implemented, which all our members will be expected to follow.

Members to benefit from capacity development and networking opportunities

The benefits of joining SITA extend from merely being a part of a formally registered association.

We plan to organize regular training opportunities, conferences and a lecture series to enable our members to stay up-to-date with best current practices in the industry. We will also organize and help facilitate collaborative and networking opportunities between local businesses, as well as regional technical and funding organizations to develop and implement ICT projects and solutions that will benefit Samoa.

SITA will also have a role in developing awareness of ICT and will advise and support the Government of Samoa in its activities to educate people about using technology to improve their working and living standards, as well as to protect themselves from cyberthreats.

The challenge ahead

At last week’s meeting, the Executive Team recognized the road ahead for SITA is long but felt the process and strategies that have already been put in place have put us in a sustainable position for the near future.

As with all new initiatives, especially voluntary ones, time and money will be key challenges. We discussed the need to balance and prioritize our time spent working on SITA with our other work commitments — the last 12 months leading to the present required a lot of time, effort and commitment — often after-hours — to plan and complete assigned tasks.

That said, we all remain passionate and positive towards the cause and are looking forward to shaping the development of ICT in Samoa for many years to come.

Fainuulelei James Ah Wai is President of SITA.

Click to read on APNIC Blog

As originally published on Solomon Times

Over 100 ICT professionals from across Honiara took part in a forum and networking event on the future of technology in Solomon Islands.

Jointly organised by the IT Society of Solomon Islands(ITSSI) and the Women in IT Solomon Islands(WITSI), the event was supported by Australia’s Cyber Cooperation Program as part of its work to strengthen the local ICT community.

Providing the opening speech, Gordon Denty, IT Technical Advisor at the Ministry of Education and Human Resources of Solomon Islands, and Vice President of ITSSI spoke on the topic of what will come next for the country’s ICT sector. The second speaker, Suzanne Orudiana, IT Manager at the Solomon Islands National Provident Fund, and Interim Treasurer of WITSI shared her ICT career journey, encouraging more Solomon Islanders, especially women, to consider studying and working in the sector.

The speeches were followed by a panel discussion with representatives of a diverse cross-section of Solomon Island’s ICT industry. Panellists included Alice Alisae Aote’e, IT Coordinator at the Solomon Water and the Interim President of WITSI; Smith Iniakwala, Director of Solomon Islands Government ICT Support Unit; Watson Anikwai, Systems Analyst at the Solomon Islands National University; and Elizabeth Sodu, Project Manager at ANZ goMoney Solomon Islands. The interactive discussion focused on opportunities for inclusiveness in technology and how Solomon Islands can best use its human resources to make the most of its digital opportunities.

The networking event brought together professionals from the private sector, government and civil society which was a timely opportunity to discuss how the Coral Sea Cable will revolutionise connectivity in the country.

The event was supported by Australia’s Cyber Cooperation Program which works across the Indo-Pacific to improve regional cyber resilience and supports Australia’s commitment to deliver on the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development which recognises the vital role of digital technologies to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all. With assistance from the Program the ACS is working with ITSSI and WITSI to strengthen their organisational capacity and be the voice of the country’s ICT community.