Staff Reporter
IN just two months since the formation of the Q-CERT (Qatar Computer Emergency Response Team), its new cyber security programme has been successfully established and is operational now, Qatar’s Supreme Council for Information and Communication Technology (ictQATAR) said yesterday.
Q-CERT will be a world-class centre of excellence in Information Security, conducting national and regional programmes in cyber threat and vulnerability reporting, incident response, and security improvement.
This programme will support ictQATAR’s goal to protect the nation’s critical infrastructure as cyberspace becomes the nerve centre of government, business and educational operations.
Q-CERT, a partnership between ictQATAR and The Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Institute (SEI) CERT Co-ordination Centre, is mandated to build cyber security capability and capacity in government and private sector organisations in order to improve information security in Qatar and the Gulf region.
Leading the Q-CERT operational plan are distinguished information technology experts Archie Andrews Jr and Dr Rashid al-Ali.
“The speed and efficiency with which Andrews and Dr al-Ali have tackled the start-up issues and got the Q-CERT programme off the ground is impressive,” said ictQATAR secretary general Dr Hessa al-Jaber.
Andrews comes to Q-CERT from the CERT Co-ordination Centre of the Software Engineering Institute in Pittsburgh, US. He has over 30 years’ experience in information technology and programme management.
Dr al-Ali, from ictQATAR, is the programme manager of Q-CERT. He has almost 15 years’ experience in information technology and computer networks.
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