Appoint Cyber Security Officers – BoG Tells Banks

Bank of Ghana (BoG) has urged all banks in the country to appoint Cyber and Information Security Officers (CISO) in their respective offices.

The role of these officers is to advise senior management and the board on cyber security issues, and also formulate adequate measures to manage cyber and information security risks.

Speaking at the launch of Cyber Security Directive for Financial Institutions policy on Monday, the First Deputy Governor at BoG, Dr. Maxwell Opoku-Afari, said “a key component of the measures to be deployed by the CISO is the training and education of all stakeholders.”

He stressed that “it takes an individual to click on an email attachment for a virus to be introduced into the system of an organization, but the whole organization, and sometimes the entire nation, may also suffer the unintended consequences of this single action.”

Threats of Cyber-attacks growing

Mr. Opoku-Afari noted that there is a growing threat of Cyber-attacks on the financial system globally, and Ghana is no exception.

“Indeed, cyber-attacks have the potential to pose systemic risk by disrupting business operations within the financial sector. For Ghana, the threat is growing. A recent study in 2016 disclosed that there were more than 400,000 Malware incidents, 44 million Spam incidents, and 280,000 Bot incidents within Ghana’s financial industry”, he said.

But in spite of this gloomy picture, he believes the Cyber Security Directive does not fall short of addressing these issues.

The directive, according to him, seeks to establish the conduct and operational guidelines for the cyber and information security environment.

The Cyber Security Directive was launched in line with the National Cyber Security Awareness month (NCSA).

Subsequent to the launch, banks are required to follow an implementation schedule to ensure that effective cyber security controls are in place to counter any threats of cybercrime.

By: Emmanuel Yeboah Britwum